


Injustice: Scars

by Evilpixie



Series: Injustice [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Justice League, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilpixie/pseuds/Evilpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of 'Injustice' Bruce and Clark struggle to come to terms with what has happened and reconstruct their crumbling relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to my previous story 'Injustice' based on the comic and game 'Injustice: Gods Among Us'.
> 
> It is fairly dark at points, and deals with some heavy issues, etc. Proceed with caution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story picks up shortly after the events of 'Injustice'.

"This will hide it, sir."

 

A vibrant collection of skin coloured paint and plastics coated the tabletop before him. The disguise kit lay upturned in the middle of it all. Makeup spilt in a multicoloured stain... like slowly drying blood. Scissors, glue, and an assortment of different brushes framed the messy array.

 

"At least until we find a more permanent option."

 

Bruce flexed his jaw and slid his fingers down his right cheek; from the edge of his eye down to his chin. He could feel the ridges of scar tissue - the buckled blistered S - under the false second skin. Alfred gently swatted aside his hand.

 

"Until then, Master Bruce, I recommend you keep your fingers, and that of any company you may indulge in, at a safe distance."

 

"Thanks Alfred."

 

"Don't mention it, sir," the man responded as he tilted Bruce's jaw up to admire his handiwork. "Of course the friction of the cowl is more likely to chafe the plastic. We should consider making some adjustments to the design. Perhaps a full face mask. But, Bruce Wayne shall be able to stagger into tonight's charity ball without..."

 

"No."

 

Alfred frowned. "Sir?"

 

"I'm not changing the cowl."

 

"But... sir..."

 

Bruce stood, pushed by the stunned butler, and strode towards the computer pressed against the wall of the cave. His symbol blared across the adjacent screens; black pronged wings spread for battle, head crowned in two sharp ears, and body lost in the span of wings. It sat above him like a king disdainfully judging his subject.

 

Weak.

 

He'd always been weak. A hollow, fractured, shell of a man. A shell compiled of the shattered remains of a boy destroyed on the edge of Crime Alley. He'd been weak then - too weak to save his parents - and he was still weak. He'd been too weak to save himself from Superman. He'd been too weak to even keep fighting.

 

"If you're suggesting we leave the scar exposed while..."

 

"Brand. It's a brand."

 

"Yes, well, that may be the case but there is no reason for..."

 

"There is no reason to hide it either, Alfred."

 

No reason to hide from the truth. From his failure. From his weakness. Not when he wore his true face. Not when he let the fragile splinters of his Bruce Wayne persona yawn wide; wide enough for the little boy to finally scream as bloodied pearls rained down around him; wide enough for his failure, his frailty, his weakness to gape like a pit inside him; wide enough for the bat to claw its way to the surface. Dark. Primeval. Angry.

 

"Master Bruce," Alfred approached slowly. "I hate to be so blunt but how are you dealing with what happened on the other world, sir?"

 

Bruce glared at the screens. At the stagnant bat symbol staring down at him.

 

"I know... it can't be easy coming to terms with it. Lord knows I can't imagine how I would confront such a situation. But I have seen you in some very dark places. Places I judge best not revisited."

 

"I'm fine." Cold. Hard. A dismissal.

 

The butler crossed his arms and stood his ground. "I hate to question such a staunch, reasoned, and reassuring, statement," he continued, "but those are the same words you uttered after Jason died. I watched you lose yourself then, sir. I don't intend to let it happen again." A stretched silence. When Alfred spoke his tone was soft, reassuring. "I am here for you if you need me, Master Bruce. So are the boys. Please. Don't forget that."

 

Bruce didn't answer.

 

"The ball is at nine, sir," the butler said after a pause. "Since the Wayne Foundation is hosting the event I doubt very much you can escape the torture unnoticed." Another pause. "I shall have the car here at ten. Your clothes are laid out on your bed."

 

He left.

 

Footsteps echoed off the cave walls, off the retreating steps, and up into the belly of the mansion. And then there was nothing but the low hum of the monitors as they awaited his command; black winged insignia plastered across static white. He scratched his cheek.

 

Weak.

 

Too weak to save his parents, too weak to save his city, too weak to save himself.

 

Broken.

 

All the pieces of him. The fractured shards of his shell. Pulled tight. Tight around him. Around the black, bitter, anger that boiled, writhed, snarled, inside him. That glared down at him from the screens. That stared accusing from the hollow cowl deeper in the cave. Hungry. Hurt. Humiliated.

 

Hollow.

 

Like a withered bud on a rose bush, crumbling petals peeled back to expose a worm ridden centre. A promise unfulfilled. A flower never to bloom. Too weak. Too easily broken. Too easily destroyed. Dominated. Reduced to a pleading, pathetic, puppet in a matter of days.

 

 _Whore_.

 

He was clawing at his cheek. Scratching. Ripping. Tearing. Tearing away the fake skin. The glue. The paint. Ripping away the perfect, pretty, lie to expose the withered red brand stamped into his skin. The mark the other world Superman had left; a brutal declaration of ownership, of punishment, of sadistic love. A scar. A brand. Seared into his flesh on a whim. Made to last forever.

 

And it would. He wore enough scars to know when something was permanent. To know that whenever he looked into the mirror there would always be the stern, scarring, lines of Superman's signature. The unavoidable, unrefusable, evidence of his failure. Of his weakness.

 

He turned away from the computer, away from the stark angry monitors, and descended the steps to sink into the darkness of the cave. Dark. Shadow. Safe. He kept the lights off as he walked down the familiar route. Blind in the blackness. Protected the by dark. He reached the lockers, reached for the cowl, and dressed. Pulled the glaring, accusing, face of the bat over his head, and climbed into the batmobile. Drove.

 

Drove with the urgency of prey fleeing a predator.

 

With the urgency of the chased.

 

Of the fearful.

 

Of the angry.

 

Of the hurt.

 

Didn't matter. None of it mattered. Only pain. Humiliation. Destruction. Bright lights on memory smattered crystal. Red eyes. Pain. Weakness. The betrayal of his body. The betrayal of his mind. Years. Years of self-awareness, understanding, torn away in a few fractured, sleepless, days. Curled in corner of a shower. Crushed against an icy floor. A mattress. An unyielding, pressing, body.

 

Didn't matter. Didn't mean anything. Didn't change anything.

 

The dashboard flashed. Alfred was trying to contact him.

 

He parked. Found a lookout point on the edge of Amusement Mile and quickly tapped into the police communications and the five most common private radio transaction frequencies. A domestic violence case was called in. A few unconfirmed reports on the mutant gang. A would be shop robber gunned down by the checkout chick. A man below was trying to sell drugs.

 

It was a start.

 

Bruce gathered his cape around himself, tensed, and dropped silently behind the dealer. He waited for the man to read the look of terror on his customer's face, waited for him to turn, waited for the inevitable reflex attack. When he did Bruce grabbed the poorly judged blow and broke the man's knuckles.

 

"Where are the drugs coming from?!"

 

"C-Chinatown on t-the docks east side," the man stammered, clutching his wounded hand.

 

"Who?"

 

"Guy named Pete. He... he says he works with Penguin. And the... it's true I swear! Don't!"

 

"Talk!"

 

"He... he said the bird would protect us. Keep us safe at good prices. No trail. No trace. We were meant to be safe. He said we would be safe!"

 

His shouted words bounced off the glitzy stalls and darkened rides of the nearby strip. The unanswered signal from Alfred buzzed in his ear beside a static stained police report of a hold up and the giggling voices of two children playing with walkie talkies.

 

"There is no such thing as safe."

 

He knocked the guy unconscious, pulled the drugs from his pockets, found a wallet, and checked ID. He could find him again if he needed. But he doubt he would. His hand would heal. But he would stay scared.

 

But Bruce... the Bat... he needed more.

 

The docks.

 

He found Pete three hours later in an apartment on the edge of Chinatown. It smelt of old smoke and sex. Suitcases stuffed full of street grade heroin wrapped in strips of oily newspaper. Money danced in air-conditioned air. Pete lay in a bloody mess on the floor. His forehead was caved. Lead lost.

 

More. He needed more.

 

He made his way back to the centre of the city and found a spot on the edge of a building. Some small part of him realised Alfred was no longer trying to contact him. Another part of him looked numbly across the city and counted the people lost in the tangle of cement and steel. Tried to pick out the criminals from the victims. But this high up everyone looked the same.

 

"My," Selina purred. "You look like you're having a rough night."

 

Bruce turned. Catwoman sat on the edge of the roof toying idly with a pink diamond necklace and stroking an ally cat that lay ponderously across her lap.

 

"I must say it has been one of those evenings," she continued softly. "Nothing seems to go quite the way imagined. Why, I myself attended Bruce Wayne's charity ball in hopes of stealing a kiss, or a jewel, from the man himself." She sighed mournfully. "He must be sick, poor pet, not to attend his own party. I was so looking forward to it. All I managed to swipe was these measly things." She rolled the necklace over so it glittered in the moonlight. "Beautiful, of course, but I'm afraid it was far too easily won. I doubt the woman has even now noticed their absence. Without the challenge... why, they might as well be river rocks."

 

He moved towards her.

 

She quickly removed the cat from her lap and rocked up onto her feet. Green eyes locked with his; stared at him in a blatant, careful, appraisal. She stared at him as if he were someone dangerous. Someone strong. Someone powerful.

 

"It is strange," she continued as she started to slowly slink towards him. "Why would Bruce Wayne miss his own ball? And, on a completely unrelated topic," she added with a flicker of a smile, "why is it I would find a bat prowling on such a boring night as this one?"

 

She was close now. Close enough to reach out and trail a claw tipped finger along the line of his shoulders. Close enough for the soft jasmine of her perfume to touch the air he breathed. Close enough for the green of her eyes, eyes that looked at him like someone powerful, to glow like kryptonite.

 

"Could it be you're looking for little old me?"

 

He grabbed her arm, pushed her against the back of a billboard, and crushed his lips to hers. She moaned against the savage plundering of his kiss and hooked her free hand around his neck to pull him against her harder.

 

He violently fought through the memories of Superman crushing him against an icy floor and seized control. Revelled in it. Sank into it. Overdosed on it.

 

Tried to ignore the dark voice whispering in the back of his mind. Tried to ignore the promises of his failing weakness. Tried to ignore his failings. Tried to ignore the red eyed memories lurking below the surface of his mind. Pretended to be strong. To be whole. To be powerful.

 

He dragged his lips away from hers to slide his thumb from the collar of her uniform, between her breasts, and down to her navel. As he did so he opened the provocative zipper revealing the smooth white muscled flesh of her body beneath.

 

"Mmm..." Selina arched against his touch, casually dropped the glittering pink diamonds onto the cement, and slid her lips along the line of his jaw. "Finally."

 

_What will you do for the belt?_

 

No. He gritted his teeth. Selina. Think of Selina.

 

Her skin was soft, yielding, and surrounded lithe used muscle. Her breasts were like her lips; full, pink, and warm. Her nipples erect and hard against the scrape of his fingers, her legs flexible and muscular as they wrapped around his hips, and her cleft wet and welcoming as he entered her. He moved inside her, drew their mouths together in a hungry kiss, and shared in her open mouthed pleasure, her heavy lidded desire, and her intoxicating need.

 

_Whore._

 

She slid her tongue along the edge of his mask, across the exposed corner of the brand printed on his cheek, and over his lips. Carelessly accepting the change. When she spoke it was against him. Voice muffled between their shared kiss.

"Come on," she said. "Right there. Right... ah... yes..."

 

He grabbed her hips and rolled in her with deliberate precision force. Watched as her eyes fluttered closed, her brow crumbled, and her mouth opened in a loud, uninhibited, moan. A moan that melted into soft, hiccupping, sighs as he finished inside her.

 

As he drew out she peeled off the condom he hadn't noticed her slip on him and tossed it aside with a playful smile before dropping to her knees to clean him up with some carefully provocative laps of her tongue. He noticed her pick up the diamonds and subtly slip them into her boot before she stood and zipped her suit back together as she leant forward to plant one more kiss on his lips.

 

"You know, Bruce," she whispered, "I used to imagine I was in love with you. And the way you would hunt me whenever I stole... that beautiful game of cat and mouse we would play. I thought it meant you loved me too." She withdrew and slowly shook her head. "I used to pretend one day you would endeavour to sweep me away to some far away place where even the biggest ruby would seem like a dull trinket to our passion. Such a fool I was."

 

"Selina..."

 

"Now I see," her smile was sharp, eyes alight, tongue pressed playfully behind slightly parted teeth. "What we share is something far more precious than love."

 

He didn't say anything. Felt a lurch as he realised he was losing control. As he realised he never truly had it. Weak.

 

"We, darling, share a moment. A simple, small, moment of our lives. A moment where for the first time fantasy and honesty meet in," she winked, "leather clad perfection. Oh, I could trick myself into falling in love with you, Bruce. I could. But it would never be as beautiful as this. Because, just like a diamond, this moment is only precious because it is so small, so beautiful, and so rare."

 

She backed away from him and picked up her whip.

 

"Selina."

 

"Like a diamond this is only precious because it's a challenge." She strutted to the side of the building, stepped up onto the ledge, and looked back at him. Her eyes softened. "I could love you, Bruce. If I let myself I could fall head over tail for you." Her lips curled. "But you're going to find someone else. Someone good. Someone who can understand that dark look in your eye. Someone who can help you." Her whip flicked across the gap to snag on a gargoyle on the next building. "Me? I'm just another villain," she purred. "See you later, big boy." With a cat-like bound she disappeared over the edge into the smoky air of the Gotham night.

 

He should go after her.

 

Stop her.

 

Drop the diamonds in a paper bag by the GCPD with her already abandoned address.

 

He didn't.

 

Instead he put his costume back together, reached for his grabble, and leapt into the night. He swung between buildings until he found one of his usual look out points; a toothy edge to the old Ace Chemicals building currently being refurbished to house the LexCorp Gotham division. Crouched on the edge he could look down Main Street to Wayne Enterprises and still see the where the docks sprung from the Narrows; reaching like fingers towards the distant light of Arkham Island.

 

And none of it was any better than the night his parents were gunned down.

 

Rotten.

 

His city was rotten.

 

And he was too weak to save it.

 

And Selina... she looked at his mask and painted a picture of power. She touched his scars with claw tipped fingers and imagined strength. She pulled him against her and toyed with the idea of an indomitable force. With her, for a moment, he had been able to pretend that was who he was. With her, for a moment, he had been able to forget. Where fantasy and honesty meet.

 

"... has been shot and killed by a masked assailant making his escape in a green vehicle down..."

 

He could see it. The flash of red and blue as the police sirens screamed their pursuit. The screams as the car cut across the sidewalk and smashed through a newsstand. The gleeful shrieks of the would-be super villain as he leant out the window of the small green car skidding onto Main Street.

 

Enough.

 

Bruce dove off the side of the building and plummeted towards the speeding car. He reached back and touched the memory cloth of his cape just long enough to swoop onto the bonnet of the car. Reached through the windshield and pulled the man from his seat. The car spun out of control. Bruce dove off the side, dragging the wailing man with him. They crashed through the glass front of a soap shop.

 

"F... Fuck you!" The man stammered through the cheap plastic mask. "I knew you'd come for me! Lock me up in Arkham! I'm down with that. That's where all my heroes are."

 

He hit him.

 

Hit him until the sounds coming from his mouth stopped making sense. Hit him until the sounds coming from his mouth were coloured red. Hit him until there was nothing but blood and blue eyes staring up at him in terror.

 

Didn't matter.

 

It didn't matter because somehow this wannabe maniac had got hold of a gun and pulled the trigger. It didn't matter because despite the years he'd fought, despite the people who had died, despite everything nothing had changed. His city was rotten. As rotten as it had been when his parents were killed. And he was too weak to save it.

 

Hollow. Helpless. Hopeless.

 

And the only way... the only way to pretend it was okay was to make this arsehole look at him like he had red eyes that could burn into his skin. The only way to pretend it was okay was to kiss Selina like his lips didn't still remember Superman. The only way to pretend it was okay was to hunt until the night bled so no one could see how broken he was. How weak. How much it hurt.

 

Because Batman had to endure... even when Bruce couldn't.

 

"Batman!"

 

A police officer. Young. Blonde hair tied in practical bun at the base of skull. Her partner followed close behind. Bullock.

 

"You're under arrest Batman!"

 

"You're killing him!"

 

"Put your hands up you son of a bitch!"

 

"That's enough!"

 

Not enough.

 

With a snarl he dropped a smoke pellet and disappeared into the depths of the shop. Escaped out the back vent and grappled to the rooftops. Bloody handprints on cement and steel.

 

He needed more.

 

Stopped a mugging. A gang of mutants stalking a pair of drunken girls. A man with venom hounds, a motorbike gang guarding territory that used to belong to Two Face, a Penguin tattooed drug dealer. Pimps whoring underage sex workers. Painted on smiles. Gangs. Chains. Crowbars. Guns under armpits.

 

Metallic taste on the tip of his tongue.

 

Still not enough. More.

 

An attempted rape on the dockside, a gang of mutants trading in illegal firearms off the waterfront, and another idiot in a Halloween costume that fancied himself the next Joker. None of it was worth it. None of it was bigger than the police could handle. None of it. But he needed it. Needed to feed that empty, hungry, anger inside him. Needed to hurt. To harm. To hunt.

 

He'd scraped the armour off his knee somewhere. Bled. Shoulder hurt.

 

And then he was crouched on the edge of Wayne Enterprises staring at the paling horizon. Watching Gotham wake. And it still wasn't enough. He was still hollow, hungry, hurt. Wasn't enough...

 

_Only because you won't let it be..._

 

He spat blood.

 

_It's your choice how this happens..._

 

Flinched as he became aware of the new bruises spanning up his arm. Tried to recall which fight. When it happened. How.

 

_I always imagined it rough with you..._

"Leave me alone," he muttered.

 

_Bruce..._

 

Snarled. "Go away."

 

"Bruce?"

 

He stiffened.

 

"Bruce I'm... Alfred called me. You disappeared. You... You're hurt."

 

Superm-Clark floated beside him. Dawn light spilt long shadows across sculpted Kryptonian features. Eyes a startling blue.

 

"Go away," Bruce repeated.

 

"I..."

 

"Now."

 

"Bruce I..." Clark began. Hesitated. Changed his tactic. "Are you alright?"

 

The question hung unanswered.

 

"Please... Alfred is worried. You just... disappeared... you've been gone for almost twelve hours. You haven't contacted anyone, the police are finding small time criminals beaten near to death all around the city, and you've hurt yourself." A pause. "Please talk to me Bruce."

 

"I'm fine."

 

"You're not." Clark sighed. "Whenever you say that like that I know you're a mess." He raked a hand through his hair. "And I know it's all my fault."

 

"This has nothing to do with what happened between me and the other world's Superman," he lied.

 

"To hell it doesn't." Clark said. "Last time you acted like this Jason... and even then... I should have been there. I should have... should have saved you. I'm sorry. I'm... god Bruce... I'm so sorry." Eyes closed. "I know I let you down. I know I'm the last person you probably want to see right now. But you can't... no... it's not you... it's not your fault..."

 

Wrong. He was wrong. It was all wrong.

 

Clark shouldn't be here. Shouldn't be looking down at him with those suffering blue eyes that flickered from his cheek, to his eyes, and then away. Shouldn't be tumbling over his words to apologize. Shouldn't be twisting his fingers nervously in the hem of his cape. Shouldn't be... shouldn't care so much. Hurt so much. Hurt for him.

 

Bruce's gaze hardened. He couldn't allow that. Couldn't allow Clark to suffer for him. He wasn't worth that much. Small. Weak. Wrong.

 

"Leave me alone."

 

"Bruce," Clark began.

 

"Get out of my city."

 

"Please." Clark floated forward.

 

Bruce staggered back, seized by the bitter, violent, flush of fear. "Go away!"

 

Clark stared at him. "Bruce I'm so... I..." He hung for a moment. Mouth open. Gaze stricken. "I'm so sorry." And then he vanished in a gush of wind, a blur of blue, and a distant sonic boom.

 

And Bruce was alone.

 

Alone. Limping back towards the car. Alone. Watching blood drip slowly from his lip onto the dashboard. Alone. Climbing numbly out into the darkness of the cave. Alone. Battling through the sea of accusations from Alfred. Alone. Drowning in drink and painted faces as he waded as Bruce Wayne through the aftermath of a charity ball. Alone. Suiting up for the next night. Alone. Hunting. Hating. Hurting. Alone.

 

Alone with the bitter, angry, siren call of Gotham city under a red night sky. Alone with the accusing glare of the bat. Alone with the ugly mark, the brand of his tormentor, glaring from every reflective surface. Alone with the lie Catwoman left him.

 

But it was better this way. Right. Safe.

 

Because he deserved it. The pain. The weakness. The brand. He deserved it. And Clark didn't.


	2. Chapter 2

The rubble thundered down around him, slammed into him, and buried him under the smashed remains of the building that once stood on the edge of Metropolis Memorial Park. And despite himself, despite the earth shattering statistics Dr. Quintum produced on his biology, despite what everyone knew of his strength and his powers... it was heavy.

 

Heavy enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

 

Heavy enough to slam him dizzy into the foundation filled earth.

 

Heavy enough to hurt.

 

Clark lay for a moment under the crush of the fallen building and listened to the battle still raging above him, to the voices of the different reporters all scrambling as close as they dared to the scene, and to the cries of his teammates as they struggled to bring down the last of the attackers.

 

"...behind you GL!"

 

"This better be the last of these things!"

 

"...reporting live. As you can see behind me what appears to be a robot invasion..."

 

"Stay focused!"

 

"Ah! Avoid attacking them from above! They have some kind of heat gun!"

 

"Position 23! Now!"

 

"The Justice League has responded in full force and managed to stop most of the invaders..."

 

"That blast... it's red..."

 

"Get down!"

 

"However, the frontline has been pushed to the centre of the city and is endangering..."

 

"Batman!"

 

Bruce.

 

Muffled. Almost lost in the sea of other noise... Bruce.

 

Clark sat up, began to push through the rubble, found it collapsing on him almost as fast as he pushed it aside, and with a snarl kicked off the ground and burst back into the open air in a shower of debris. He shot through the formation the rest of the team was forming and dove into robotic arms of the attacks. Metal crumbled around knuckle. Machinery whirred and shattered as it was blasted with ice laced air. Heat poured from his eyes; carved a path through the battalion before him.

 

"Superman! Don't!"

 

Something hit him. Hurt him.

 

He cried out as he plummeted into the parkland below, felt the earth explode around him, and heard the screams of the news reporters as they scrambled to get out of the way. Stared up in shock. The sky was too blue. Jarring. Stark. Empty.

 

With a grunt of pain he pushed himself onto his feet, flinched, and touched his chest. The front of his uniform was burnt.

 

"What...?"

 

A flash of green as Hal spearheaded the attack into the enemy lines. Diana and Shazam followed. Behind them came the rest of the League. With effort he rose from the ground and swooped in behind them. It didn't take them long to divide the attackers and quickly dismantle the last of the machines.

 

With a sigh he dropped back down stagger unceremoniously onto the pavement of the street below, wiped the sweat from his brow, and turned his face up towards the sun. Felt the energy spread slowly through him in a soft prickle of warmth, of strength, of wholeness. The damage to his body relented, the weakness melted away, and the weight of the world gently eased.

 

"Superman!"

 

Bruce landed beside him in a flurry of fabric. A scorch mark had burnt the armour on his shoulder and through the edge of his cape. His look was colder than Pluto.

 

"Batman?"

 

"What were you doing out there?" Spoken through bared teeth.

 

"I..." Clark's eyes fell to the brand sneaking around the edge of the cowl and quickly back to his eyes. "I..."

 

"You charged into battle without any backup," Bruce snarled in answer. "You fought with a complete disregard for your training, your environment, or those around you! You endangered civilians! You ignored contact from the rest of the League! You almost killed yourself!"

 

Clark stared at him in horror.

 

"I... I... No..."

 

"They were equipt with weapons powered with red sun radiation," Bruce continued relentlessly. Dark. Hard. Angry. "We discovered this prior to your attack, Superman. The information had been communicated. If you'd been listening you would have known."

 

"I..."

 

"If Flash hadn't vacated the area people would be dead! Do you understand?! You damn near killed despite that! You're bloody lucky you didn't!"

 

"Br... Batman... I... I didn't mean... I would never..."

 

"Never what, Superman? Never put others in danger? Because that is exactly what you did. You were meant to partner up with Diana. You left her exposed. You left yourself exposed!" Low. Voice stained with barely swallowed fury. "If you can't work as part of this team, Superman, then I suggest you leave it."

 

Clark felt like he'd just been struck. "W...What?"

 

Bruce's glare was unforgiving, unrelenting, unyielding. "You heard me."

 

"Batman!"

 

Diana dropped down between them and firmly pushed them apart. "This isn't the place, Batman." Her voice was low. Barely above a whisper. "This isn't the time."

 

Dimly Clark became aware of the cluster of cameramen and reporters gathered not far from where he stood. Shoulder mounted cameras, shotgun microphones, and handheld voice recorders all aimed toward them.

 

"Batman," Clark tried, "I didn't mean... I'm..."

 

"Save it," the man snapped.

 

"Batman," he said again. Firmer. "You don't understand. I need..."

 

Bruce looked at him. And the look in those pale eyes almost destroyed him. It was the same look Bruce had given him on the other world in the Fortress of Solitude. The same look Bruce had had when he thought Clark was the man who had held him down and hurt him. The same look Bruce had given him when he thought he was the other world's monstrous Superman. Hate. Blistering. Undisguised.

 

"I understand perfectly what you think you need, Superman," Bruce growled. "Don't you dare tell me otherwise."

 

He turned. Away from Diana. Away from the reporters. Away from him.

 

"Let him go," Diana whispered. "No... it's okay... let him go."

 

"I'm not him. I would never..."

 

"He knows, Superman. He knows. Just sometimes he... forgets."

 

Once the reporters judged Bruce at a safe distance they swarmed. Hal and Barry appeared either side of him to hold back the tide.

 

"Back up."

 

"Superman! Inquisitor. What happened back there?"

 

"Back up."

 

"Superman, channel fifty two, do you have any comments on what just happened?"

 

"League business. Give us some room."

 

"Daily Planet. Was your performance today as dangerous as The Batman suggests?"

 

"We have no comments at this time."

 

"Was this confrontation merely professional or was it personal?"

 

"Does this have anything to do with Batman's new scar?"

 

"Does Batman have the power to kick you off the League?"

 

"Alright, you back up or I'm backing you up myself, buddy."

 

Diana placed a careful hand on his wrist and gently tugged him skywards. Numbly, he followed. The shouts and questions of the press faded until they were just a gaggle of noise almost indistinguishable from the sounds spilling off the rest of the planet. He followed her until the earth hung below them and the stars starting winking through the atmosphere above. The closest Diana could comfortably fly towards space.

 

"He was right," Clark said.

 

"No. He wasn't."

 

"I could have hurt someone."

 

"You screwed up," Diana responded with a sigh. "Zeus knows you're not the only one who has been doing that lately. But that doesn't make you a bad person. That doesn't make you him."

 

Him.

 

Clark turned away from her to gaze down at the blue and green orb hanging in space below him. He tracked the sand and stone coast line of South America until it melted into the East Coast of the United States. Let his gaze flicker across the smog stained skies above Gotham. Followed the interlocking roads that linked the city with his sparkling Metropolis.

 

"Sometimes I think I am him," Clark confessed. "That all it would take is one bad thing and I would... I would become him..."

 

Diana drifted closer to him, her eyes, like his, trained on the glittering planet below.

 

"I never told you this, Clark, but when I first came from Themyscira and saw the world of man I thought it sick."

 

He looked up at her in surprise. Her face was unreadable. Features set.

 

"Mankind, I thought, is dying. They are eating themselves from the inside out and none among them are strong enough, are powerful enough, are brave enough, to stand up and stop it. None of them could take control and fix all that was wrong with the world... and then I met you."

 

They hung in silence for a moment.

 

Below them the clouds parted and the world seemed to look back at them; as if it knew the topic of their discussion; as if it knew its fate lay in the hands of these two would be superheros. Somewhere, amid the muddle of noise below, a group of people were singing.

 

"I thought you would do it, Clark. I thought one day you would realise the same thing I had and step forward to set everything right. To fix everything. To create the perfect world." Her smile was fleeting. Shallow. "I stayed by your side. Waiting. My trips home became less and less."

 

"Diana."

 

"I'd forgotten," she continued. "I'd forgotten I ever felt that way. That I was ever so ignorant. That I was ever so willing to follow you into injustice." The lines around her mouth hardened. "And then we went to the other world."

 

He hung in the air. Silent. Miserable.

 

"You fear you'll become him, Clark. You fear something will happen and you'll change. But I  _was_  her. And when I fought her I saw... I saw..." she closed her eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. "Fuck."

 

"It's okay."

 

"No it isn't," she croaked. "I'm... gods... I'm crying. I haven't cried since... it was like looking into a mirror, Clark. And all the things she said, the things he said, about the perfect world. They were my words. My thoughts. My... I'm sorry... I don't know why I'm... crying... this is... embarrassing..."

 

"You're not her."

 

"And you're not him," Diana snapped as she turned away and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "You've never been him and you never will be."

 

Clark felt a lump rise in his throat. Painful. Dry. Angry. "You don't know that."

 

"No," she looked back towards him, "I know you."

 

"He said things," he admitted. Voice heavy. Pained. "When he was tied up in the lasso and speaking Kryptonian he said things about me that... they're true, Diana. He was in the lasso. He couldn't lie. I'm... I am him. I... have the same mind... the same... wants..."

 

"You didn't do anything."

 

"Exactly!" Clark cried. "I should have been there! The second you disappeared I shouldn't have rested until I was through into your world! The second I arrived I should have gone to the fortress! I failed him!"

 

"You saved him!"

 

"I raped him."

 

"No," Diana snapped; face red, lashes wet. "You didn't. You  _know_ that. He  _knows_  that."

 

Clark was shaking his head. Gulping back the sick, wretched feeling that threatened to spill from his lips. "He's afraid of me. I tried to talk to him in Gotham a few months ago... and today... you saw how he looked at me today. And he's right! What if something happens? What if someone dies and I..."

 

"Someone did die, Clark," Diana whispered. "Bruce died."

 

"No he didn't..."

 

"He did. As far as we knew he was dead." A slow, careful, breath. "You've been there, Clark. You believed someone you cared about died when you could have stopped it and you didn't go mad. You didn't lose yourself." She straightened and fixed him with a stern blue stare. "You fought on. You fought to save a planet from a dictator. You fought for justice despite the injustice you'd been dealt. And in the end you were the better man."

 

He wished it were that easy. He wished that a simple explanation could swallow the lump of guilt that welled inside him whenever he saw his crest seared into the flesh of his best friend. He wished that a magical mathematical equation could rip out, render, and replace his soul with assurances that he was simply too good to ever do evil. He wished it could all be so simple, so black and white, so... easy. But it wasn't. Nothing ever was.

 

Clark reached across the gap between them and wordlessly took her hand. It was a small gesture. Tiny. Fragile. But it was all he had to give. A small, simple, reminder that she was not alone.

 

She squeezed his fingers, smiled sadly, and then with a sigh dropped them.

 

"You need to talk to Bruce."

 

Clark frowned. "He doesn't want to talk to me."

 

"I know." Hand raked through hair. "By the gods, I know. But  _you_  need to talk to him. You haven't been the same since we came back from the other world. And he... someone needs to make sure he's okay. He's more aggressive, he's taking bigger and bigger risks, and hardly says a word to anyone unless it's insulting." She shook her head. "He may not wear his emotions on his sleeve like you do but... I don't think he's taking this as well as we thought."

 

For a moment, all he could do was stare at her. Her armour was chipped, scratched, and yet still blazed a defiant bronze in the waning sunlight. Her body was toned, firm, and covered in a series of small nicks and cuts from the day's battle. Her hair flew wild around her face; black, curled, and spotted with small braids. She was beautiful. But the look in her eyes was desperate. Strained.

 

"I can't Diana." Clark said. "You don't understand. Whenever I'm in a room he stands on the opposite side. Whenever I look at him he looks at me like I'm," he swallowed, "a predator. If I approach him he flinches away. And after what Superman did how can I blame him? I won't... I won't force him to answer to the face that did this to him. He's already been hurt enough."

 

She looked down.

 

"I understand." Her brows fell. "I just... I've heard about what The Batman is doing in Gotham. How he's attacking lesser and lesser criminals with more and more violence." Her eyes flicked back to his face. "Look out for him. Please."

 

Clark nodded. "I will."

 

"Thank you."

 

Below, someone laughed. A full, hearty, wholesome, sound that seemed somehow louder than all the interlocked voices angrily competing for attention from within the massive population swelling around them. Clark smiled softly in response and looked back down on the planet; at the people collected on the sidewalk waiting for a bus in Central City, at a boy chasing a dog not far from his home in Kansas, at a couple kissing in Mexico, and at the sleek black jet descending into the gloom of Gotham in an almost eerie quiet.

 

They stayed hovering, side by side, until the sun began to disappear behind the curve of the earth and the air around them grew cold enough to freeze the corners of his cape. Then, with a shiver, Diana turned to him, wrapped her arms around him in a crushing hug, and without a word flew back down into the fray. He watched her land on the roof of an apartment building, put on a trench coat and walk down the fire escape until she reached the door to her apartment. A man greeted her at the door and she swept him into a long, open, kiss. There was nothing demanding in the exchange; nothing of need; just love.

 

With a sinking feeling he turned his gaze back to Metropolis, at his own shared apartment, at the cold boxed Chinese dinner Lois had left on the table for him. She was covering a function, hanging off the arm of a beaming socialite, and whispering excitedly with Jimmy as they shared the latest gossip. She'd stopped wearing the engagement ring.

 

He knew he should fly home, wait for her, and then sweep her off into a romantic flight around the city. He knew he should do all the thing he used to with her, tell her all the things he used to, feel all the things... He knew he should try to make sense, to save, their wilting relationship. Instead he dropped slowly from the sky towards the smog stained lights of Gotham.

 

As he sunk through the clouds a spotlight lit the sky around him, flashed of the particles of water in the air, and printed a blaring bat logo above the jagged skyline. He ducked out of the glare and looked down to the rooftop of the building below. A group of policemen stood beside the signal. The commissioner - James Gordon - and a collection of others he did not know.

 

"He won't come, Bullock."

 

"No disrespect, but your history tells a different story, Commish."

 

Gordon lit a cigarette, took a long slow drag, and blew the smoke from his nose. Didn't respond.

 

"We got to take him in, chief," one of the others spoke after a pause. "You get that, right?"

 

Again. No reply.

 

"You haven't been on the streets, chief. You haven't seen what he's been doing. There was a kid last week. Seventeen. He'll be lucky if he ever walks again."

 

"I read the file," Gordon said briskly. "That kid shot two women, Carter. Point blank." A pause. "He didn't even take their wallets."

 

"That doesn't make it right."

 

"No," Gordon conceded. "But it sure as hell feels like it does."

 

Clark flew onwards. Over the neon lit downtown, the twisting suburbs that sprawled from the dockside, and between the angry black cooperate towers that loomed over the city. Bruce wasn't on any of his normal circuits or lookouts. As the night deepened he circled wider over the Industrial District and what looked like another, seedier, entertainment strip. He checked the manor, cave, and penthouse. Checked all the safe houses he knew. Nothing.

 

It was late when he found him. It was late when he finally saw the batmobile parked in the gaping maw of a dark alley. It was late when he followed the tiny chips of the buildings left by the grapple into the thick of the Narrows. It was late when he identified the familiar unmistakable heartbeat from the rest of the population; echoing from within a stack of old apartments. It was late.

 

Too late.

 

Bruce should have finished his patrol and be in bed for the rising sun. He should have returned to the cave, shed his cape, and be back in the safety of the manor. He shouldn't be here. Not now.

 

Something was wrong.

 

He could hear crying. Smell blood.

 

Cold, sick, tendrils of panic sprouted inside him. Shot up his throat. Strangled him.

 

In silent terror Clark dove from the clouds and swooped towards the sound of the man. He broke through the wall, shrugging aside brick, live wires, and installation to fly into the small, dimly lit, room beyond.

 

Smashed pieces of furniture lay scattered around the room, dried blood stained the naked floorboards, and a large man lay broken and unconscious in the middle of the room. His hands were coated in dry blood, fingernails packed with human skin, and body covered in careful, plotted, scars. Victor Zsasz.

 

A bundle of black fabric sat slumped on the floor in the corner.

 

"Bruce!"

 

Bruce looked up at him, face bare, and blue eyes tortured.

 

"Clark..."

 

In his arms he held a girl. She clung to him, face buried into the folds of his cape; and heaved in pained dry sobs. The back of her dress was open. Carved with brutal care into the skin of her back was one, ugly, word.

 

Whore.

 

"Oh god..."

 

"Clark..." Bruce tried to move. The girl clung to him tighter with a mournful wail and Bruce sagged back as if she weighed as much as a planet.

 

Instantly Clark was beside him and gently prying the girl away from him. She hung onto the black memory cloth with the desperation of the drowning and Clark carefully leant forward and unhooked the man's cape.

 

"It's okay," he heard himself mutter. "You're safe now. It's okay."

 

Bruce was staring at him. Empty. Drained. Hurt.

 

"You're safe. I won't let anyone hurt you. Do you hear me? I won't let anyone hurt you ever again."

 

"Clark I'm sorry..."

 

He detached the fabric and quickly wrapped it around the girl. She hugged it to her chest but didn't move away from Bruce. Reached for him like she knew; like she knew he was as much a victim as she was, like she knew he was in the same, dark, place as she was, like she knew he was hurting like she was.

 

"There is a hospital on the next block," Clark said to the girl. "If you would like I'll fly us there."

 

She shook her head.

 

"Batman can come too."

 

A long pause followed by a fast nod.

 

"Clark," Bruce tried again. "I'm sorry I... was so... I needed... I didn't mean to..."

 

Clark reached forward and pulled the cowl back over the man's face. His fingers slid through dampness in his hair. Bruce flinched. Blood. Clark looked through the skin to make sure his skull wasn't fractured. Found it intact. "It doesn't matter. It's okay. You're okay."

 

"Everything is backwards now," Bruce whispered numbly. "Everything is... wrong."

 

He gathered the pair into his arms. "I know."

 

Ten minutes later the girl was asleep in a hospital bed huddled under the cape, the police were collecting Zsasz, and Bruce was sleeping like the dead in his arms. Exhausted. Defeated. Done.

 

Safe.

 

Clark felt something inside him unravel. Give.

 

Like a dam surrendering under the weight of the water he felt himself crack under the weight of all that had happened. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing but pull Bruce into a tight, desperate, embrace, and curl protectively around him. Hold him. Inhale him. Promise between broken gasps of air that they would get through this. That everything was going to be okay. That everything was going to make sense again. That everything was going to be alright.

 

The sun was coming up when he landed in front of Wayne Manor and carried Bruce over the threshold.

 

Alfred sullenly thanked him as he gingerly set the man down on his bed. A limber man with a tangled mane of black hair asked him if he knew where the batmobile was and when he responded the man nodded and disappeared behind a bookshelf. Clark turned to leave.

 

"Mr. Kent," Alfred said without moving. "Could I persuade you to stay with us for a time?"

 

The offer was so simple, so unexpected, it was jarring. He stopped. Sent a nervous look at the man lying, still in costume, across the silk covered mattress.

 

"I'm the last thing he wants to see when he wakes up, Alfred."

 

"I fear he wakes up every day seeing Superman," the butler replied. His voice was careful. Controlled. "Perhaps it better he see you instead."

 

Clark thought of Lois coming home and then waking to an empty apartment.

 

"I can't Alfred."

 

"It is your choice, sir."

 

They stood in silence.

 

He should have left. He didn't. He couldn't.

 

After a while Alfred spoke again. "I know you are a good man, Mr. Kent and I understand if you have obligations elsewhere but I would ask this in the name of the friendship you share with Master Bruce."

 

Clark tried to say something. Anything.

 

"Let me know when you decide."

 

Alfred left. Closed the door quietly behind him.

 

And suddenly Clark was alone with Bruce. And despite Alfred's belief, despite Diana's assurances, despite everything he'd ever tried to prove... he didn't... couldn't trust himself. Not with the ugly, scarring, evidence of his betrayal staring at him across the room from Bruce's face. Not with his own dark, hungry, thoughts threatening on the edge of reasoning. Not with...

 

Diana was wrong.

 

Alfred was wrong.

 

He wasn't... he shouldn't... what if he... No. He wasn't that. He would never be that. He would never do that. He would never...

 

Somewhere among the nearby houses someone turned on a television.

_"I would never..."_

_"Never what, Superman? Never put others in danger? Because that is exactly what you did."_

_"This shocking footage was filmed yesterday after the Justice League's battle in Metropolis with the still unidentified robotic attackers. The Batman aggressively questions Superman's ability to work as part of a team and goes so far as to..."_

 

Further away someone else turned on a radio.

 

_"Let's take a listen to some of the remarks The Batman made."_

_"If Flash hadn't vacated the area people would be dead! Do you understand?! You damn near killed despite that! You're bloody lucky you didn't!"_

 

Another TV.

 

_"I understand perfectly what you think you need, Superman."_

_"These cryptic remarks from Gotham City's Batman..."_

 

Another radio.

 

_"The footage isn't just juicy, Kate, it's an eye opener. The question I want answered is this; is Superman safe?"_

_"One thing is for sure, Mike, Batman doesn't think he is."_

 

He stood in horror as a thousand media outlets rose in chorus with the waking city, as his own fears were scrawled across the headlines of the globe, and as Bruce's hatred and mistrust was echoed from every TV, radio, phone, and computer.

 

And all he could do was fly.

 

Fly passed Alfred in a blur of apologies, fly out of a yawning window, and fly over the city.

 

"It's Superman!" Someone yelled from the streets below. Others took up the cry. "Superman! Superman! Superman!"

 

He gritted his teeth and bolted towards Metropolis.

 

"Superman! Superman!"

 

"Clark!"

 

He stopped. Looked over his shoulder.

 

"Clark!"

 

Amid the accusations of the media, Bruce's recorded growl, and the eager cries of the people below there was a small, frail, desperate voice.

 

"Clark!"

 

Oh.

 

He spun around and wove back between the buildings, tracked above the litter lined streets, and sank down outside emergency at Central Gotham Hospital. She was on the second floor, hands pressed up against the glass, and black cape wrapped like a blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes lit on him when he landed in the street below. For the first time Clark realised how young she was. How small. Six? Seven?

 

"Are you okay?"

 

She spoke in a whisper. But somehow... somehow it was louder than everything else... louder than the voices of the people already crowding around him, louder than the city's waking news, and louder than his own hammering heartbeat. Somehow...

 

He forced his lips into a smile and nodded.

 

"Is Bruce okay?"

 

His smile faltered.

 

"You should make sure he's okay before leaving," she scolded him.

 

People were tugging at his cape. Asking for photos with him. Handshakes. Kisses.

 

He didn't look away from her. Nodded.

 

"I won't tell," she said quickly. Breath fogged on glass. "I won't."

 

He shrugged the people off him, floated up to her window, and pressed his hand against the glass. His palm overshadowed hers. "Thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

_"And what..."_

 

Lips crushed against his.

 

Unyielding.

 

Possessive.

 

Hard.

 

Hard enough to press him into the icy wall behind him; hard enough to awaken all the bruises patterned on his skin; hard enough to send a trickle of agony up the roots of his teeth. Hard enough to hurt.

 

_"What would you do for the belt?"_

 

Bruce closed his eyes; tried to imagine Selina Kyle crawling towards him on a rain drenched rooftop and sliding her body fluidly against his; tried to imagine Talia al Ghul slowly peeling back her veil and claiming his lips in a long lingering kiss under the hollow throne of her father; tried to imagine Jezebel Jet as he'd first held her hot and naked against him and peering through a rich mane of red hair. Tried to... tried...

 

Superman spoke against his open mouth. "This isn't what you promised, Bruce." Nipped his bottom lip. "Respond. That was the deal."

 

The deal.

 

One grapple gun with a detachable climbing line, a line launcher, twelve remaining normal batarangs, two sonic baterangs, a series of small plastic explosives, explosive gel, seven smoke pellets, a disrupter, a number of plastic zip cuffs, a basic first aid kit, a freeze cluster grenade and spray, a rebreather, and a remote electrical charge. Missing would be a cryptographic sequencer and a shard of lead encased kryptonite.

 

Low. Threatening. "Bruce."

 

He kept his eyes closed, tilted his head, and plunged into the kiss. Moved against the unyielding press of the Kryptonian, slid his tongue along the inner line of indestructible lips, and opened his mouth to the alien's plundering connection. He kept his eyes closed and forced himself to welcome the throttling kiss; forced himself to breathe in the choking taste; forced himself to move with the man that held him.

 

Vicky Vale sliding her fingers down the lines on his chest, Dinah Lance scraping her tongue along the edge of his cowl, Rachel Dawes whispering surprisingly dirty promises in his ear... None of them... none of them were working...

 

Arms of steel wrapped around him and in a rush of air he was lying on a mattress and Superman was on top of him; holding his arms above his head with one hand, wedging apart his legs with a thigh, and ripping open his shirt to scrape teeth against his chest.

 

Andrea Beaumont rolling onto him smelling of roses and red wine, Roxanne Sutton shoving him down and straddling him with a wicked smile, Silver St. Cloud throwing her head back and screaming in pleasure... None of them were working... none of it was enough to ignore... to pretend...

 

"Open your eyes, Bruce."

 

He didn't.

 

"You're such as tease," Superman growled. Bit him. Broke his skin. "Open your eyes or you'll get an empty belt."

 

He tried to remind himself that Superman would rape him anyway. At least this way he got something out of it. At least this way he had some control. Some power. Some... thing. Something that was his.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

Somewhere Superman had shed his uniform exposing the unmarred skin and perfect symmetrical muscle. His hair spilt forward over his brow in a messy tangle of half curls, his cheeks were starting to heat with colour, and his eyes met Bruce's in a vivid, sparkling, blue. In that moment he almost looked more like...

 

Clark.

 

Feverously Bruce clung to the image and quickly constructed the fantasy. This wasn't Superman. It was Clark. He wasn't a prisoner. He was a guest. He was visiting the fortress. He could leave at any time. He had come after stopping Joker. He had seduced Clark. Clark had seduced him. They were going to have sex. It was consensual. No strings. No bargains. He wanted it. He'd always wanted it.

 

It wasn't much but... it worked. He worked. Clark worked.

 

Superman swept forward to claim his mouth in another penetrating kiss; moaned with appreciation as he felt Bruce respond, as he felt Bruce press against him, as he felt Bruce wrap his legs around his hips of his own volitation.

 

"I knew you couldn't keep pretending. I knew..."

 

There was an edge to his voice. A tight, violent, angry tone Clark would never use.

 

"Shut up."

 

Superman kissed the side of his neck, sucked the skin between his teeth, marked it. And Bruce dove back into his fantasy; pretended that hungry suction was Clark, those hands were Clark, that body was Clark. Clark. Honest. Open. Kind. Caring. Strong. Safe. His friend. His best friend. Clark. He was kissing Clark. Breathing Clark. Tasting Clark. Loving Clark.

 

Superman shook Bruce free of his hips and using his spare hand hooked his fingers under the waist line of Bruce's pants and pushed them down, exposed the man's hardening penis, and tossed the clothing aside.

 

He was naked. They were naked.

 

"This isn't just for the belt, is it?" Superman said and roughly traced a scar with the tip of his tongue down from Bruce's shoulder to the middle of his chest. "Admit it. You want this."

 

Again the tone jarred him. Wrenched him from the lie he was desperately nurturing.

 

"Shut up."

 

The hand around his wrists tightened painfully. "Why?"

 

Any familiarity the man shared with Clark suddenly seemed to melt away until he struggled to even pick a likeness from those identical features. Superman. The man holding him down was Superman. The man who had raped him. The man who would rape him. The man who would hurt him again and again until he finally realised Bruce didn't love him... and then he would kill him.

 

Superman read the changes in his body language - the stiffening of his muscles, the widening of his eyes, and the clench of his jaw - and quickly moved forward to press a series of deliberately soft kisses onto his lips.

 

"No. Okay. Fine." A longer kiss. "I won't talk."

 

It was the first shred of appeasement he had received since Superman agreed to give him the belt. Bruce tried to make it work. Tried to reconstruct the image of Clark. Tried to forget... but... the smell... the taste... the touch... it was... Superman.

 

He was doing this for a reason. It was the only way he could construct any sense of choice, it was the only way he could recover any control he had over his life, and it was the only way to make something of this situation. It was the only way he could wrangle any sense of self back from the twisted mess his life had become. Conditions. Bargains. Deals.

 

Superman began spreading him.

 

Superman.

 

His belt. He was doing this for his belt. For one grapple gun with a detachable climbing line, a line launcher, twelve remaining normal batarangs, two sonic baterangs, a series of small plastic explosives, explosive gel, seven smoke pellets...

 

"No!"

 

Superman looked at him. Eyes sharp. Penetrating. Didn't speak. Didn't stop.

 

He began fighting, pushing, struggling...

 

"You promised Bruce."

 

One grapple gun with a detachable climbing line, a line launcher, twelve remaining normal batarangs, two sonic baterangs...

 

"No! It's... not... no... I don't want the belt. I don't want it!"

 

Eyes narrowed. "You can't back out now, Bruce." Voice dark. "We're doing this."

 

Bruce snarled at him, writhed, bucked...

 

"Take the belt." He said softly. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."

 

One grapple gun with a... with a... Nothing. It was nothing. It wasn't... it wasn't worth...

 

"Get off me!"

 

"Why?!" Superman roared. "You were kissing me seconds ago! You were responding! What is so different now?!"

 

"I don't want it!"

 

"I won't offer it again," he promised. "This is your only chance, Bruce. This is all you have."

 

Bruce glared at him.

 

"I won't speak."

 

He didn't respond.

 

Superman took his silence for assent, wrapped his hand around Bruce's hip, and began easing into him. It hurt.

 

"No." Bruce snarled.

 

The fingers around his hip began to tighten. Slowly. Deliberately. His bone ached. Throbbed. Bruce gasped.

 

"Do you really want to fight me again?" The alien hissed. "Or would you rather the belt?"

 

"I..."

 

"How do you want to do this?"

 

Clark. He wanted Clark.

 

But, in that moment, there was nothing that resembled his friend in the man above him. There was nothing that spoke of the man he had come to call his friend in those red stained eyes. There was nothing but Superman; face twisted into a hardened mask. He couldn't pretend. Not while looking at him.

 

"Let me close my eyes."

 

Superman glared. Unmoving.

 

Bruce gritted his teeth and pulled his hands from where they were pinned, wrapped his arms around Superman's neck, and pulled himself up to press an open kiss onto the man's lips. Superman moaned into his mouth, deepened the kiss, and lurched forward to ram his hardened length into Bruce.

 

Eyes closed. He could pretend. Eyes closed he could forget. Eyes closed he could escape into the warm, beautiful, lie that Clark was there, they were together, and the world was safe.

 

He could pretend he was strong. He could pretend he was powerful. He could pretend he was something other than a trained pet.

 

A whore.

 

A whore who sold himself for one grapple gun with a detachable climbing line, a line launcher, twelve remaining normal batarangs, two sonic baterangs, a series of small plastic explosives, explosive gel, seven smoke pellets, a disrupter, a number of plastic zip cuffs, a basic first aid kit, a freeze cluster grenade and spray, a rebreather, and a remote electrical charge.

 

"Bruce?"

 

Superman. He kept his eyes closed and lay still.

 

"Do you want some food?"

 

He sounded different. Distant. Careful. Kind.

 

"No," Bruce growled. He hadn't intended to answer. Hadn't intended to respond. Not again. Not ever again. But there was something different about him. Something small and safe buried in his voice.

 

"Okay. I'll tell Alfred to save some for when you're ready."

 

He was in bed. The sheets were silk. The air was warm. In the corner a clock ticked.

 

He was in the manor. He was home.

 

Superman was gone.

 

It was over.

 

And...

 

His eyes opened. "Clark?"

 

The man stood in the doorway in full costume.

 

"Clark what are...?"

 

He remembered.

 

He remembered finding the blood samples and security tapes Gordon had misplaced by the bat signal after the Justice League's battle. He remembered following a string of murders and missing persons like links in a chain. He remembered using a voice frequency detector to narrow in on a low lying apartment building. He remembered Zsasz. The blood. The girl.

 

Her scars.

 

He remembered her scrambling away from him. Scared. And all he could do was collapse under the weight of her fear; all he could do was fall to the ground in exhausted defeat; all he could do was push back the cowl and beg, plead, with her to be okay. For everything to be okay.

 

Even though they both knew it wasn't. Even though they both learnt far too young that the world wasn't good, wasn't fair, wasn't safe. Even though they both knew nothing was going to be okay in the same way ever again.

 

He had seen worse. In his time since donning the cape and the cowl he had seen enough to learn how to look at blood as evidence and not a part of a person, to see a knife as part of the puzzle and not a tool used to disfigure and destroy, to see a crying girl as a captive saved not someone he failed to keep safe. He should have seen it that way. Months ago he would have. He would have solved the case, returned to the cave, and updated Zsasz's profile on the computer.

 

It was the word carved onto her back.

 

It shouldn't have hit him the way it did. Hurt him. But it did.

 

He'd been trapped; imprisoned under her weight as she clung to him, locked behind the crass cruel meaning of her scars staring from her bare back, held hostage by his own brutally parallel experience. Trapped by his own brand.

 

Whore.

 

Hours. He'd held her, numbly, hopelessly, for hours before Clark smashed through the wall and took them away. And the second the girl was gone, the second he was airborne in Clark's arms and away from the tiny crying creature he had surrendered. Surrendered to days surviving on shallow dream harried bouts of sleep; surrendered to nights of relentless hunting across the streets of Gotham; surrendered to the gnawing knowledge of his failure, and slept.

 

"I brought you home."

 

  Not for the first time.

 

And he could see it had hurt Clark. Could see the nervousness in the man's eyes, the stiffness in his stance as he stood in the yawning doorframe, and the nervous way he watched him. Clark had saved him. Had been watching him. Was hurting for him.

 

"I told you to get out of my city."

 

Clark looked stricken. "I know, Bruce. It's just... Diana and I are worried about you and the rest of the League is too scared to even talk to you right now. You're acting more aggressive than usual and taking risks..."

 

"In my city," he snapped. "Alone when all that's at risk is me. You're the one that endangered others, Clark."

 

Bright blue eyes looked on at him. Pleading. "I know. I'm sorry."

 

"Sorry doesn't bring back the dead," Bruce growled and sat up. Grunted in pain and pressed a hand to the side of his head. There was a wound there. New. Zsasz had hit him with a metal pipe. The cowl had taken most of the damage. Not all. Judging by the size of the wound he could have had a minor concussion...

 

Fear flashed white hot behind his eyes. "What did I say?"

 

"Bruce?"

 

"When you found me? Did I say anything?"

 

"Yes... some things... why?"

 

"What things?"

 

Clark didn't answer.

 

The belt. He told Clark about the belt. About how he'd given into Superman. How he wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough, to keep fighting until the end. He told him. It was over. He'd ruined their relationship. Ensured Clark's ongoing misplaced feelings of guilt. Ensured he would only ever be looked at like a weakling, like a victim, a whore.

 

He threw back the covers, lurched out of bed, and stormed across the room towards the stunned Kryptonian.

 

"What did I say?!"

 

"Nothing... nothing important..."

 

"Tell me!"

 

"You said you were sorry," Clark answered him, backing up as he approached. "You said everything was backwards now. You said everything was wrong."

 

"What else?"

 

"I... you said you needed... that you didn't mean... that you were sorry... that was it, Bruce. You were out of it. You weren't finishing your sentences."

 

"Why was I apologizing?"

 

A pause.

 

"Why? What was it?"

 

"I... I thought you were sorry for yelling at me... in front of the press."

 

He hadn't said anything. He hadn't...

 

"Why would I apologize for that? You needed to be brought into line."

 

Clark was looking at him like he was a ticking time bomb surrounded in kryptonite. "What... what did you think you were apologizing for?"

 

For not staying strong until you came.

 

"For not making myself clear the first time I said it." He spoke in a gravely tone. "Get out of my city."

 

Clark stared at him. "I... I went to see..."

 

"Now."

 

"Tell me you're okay first. Talk to me." A nervous breath. "I don't want to leave you like this."

 

"I'm fine."

 

"No your not!" Clark yelled. "Don't lie to me!"

 

Bruce pushed passed him and started down the corridor. Instantly Clark was flying behind him frantically flooding the air with pleading apologies. He ignored him. Moved into the red drawing room, chimed a series of off key notes into the piano, and descended into the cave.

 

The lights flared to life illuminating rows of dark vehicles, lines of batsuits staring into him with gaping maws, and his black winged insignia branded on every available surface. Splashed across the screens of the computer, imprinted onto the chest of the costumes, and styled into the shape of the cars; watching, accusing, judging.

 

"...I didn't mean it, Bruce. I'm sorry. I just want to help. Please. I can help. I have to..."

 

He walked solemnly, silently, across the expanse, reached the safe. He dialled in his code, stood still while the computer completed a quick full body scan, and pulled open the vault.

 

"Bruce? What are you doing?"

 

He reached out and selected a small lead box off the middle shelf. "Getting the kryptonite."

 

He flipped the box open and pulled the ring from its compartment. Slipped it onto his finger.

 

"Bruce..."

 

"I stole a ring when I was on the other world," he muttered as if to himself. "But it wasn't this one. No. This one might have worked."

 

He turned to Clark. The Kryptonian didn't move.

 

"I need to talk to you, Bruce," he said carefully. His breathing was broken. Ragged. "I won't come near you again if that is what you want but before I go I need to talk to you. We need to at least try to sort this out."

 

"Why? You didn't want to before."

 

"I know. I spoke to..." Sweat appeared on his brow and he reached a hand to lean against the side of the safe. "...to the girl."

 

Bruce's eyes darkened. "Why?"

 

"She called and... look... it doesn't matter. Diana agrees..."

 

"So this is some kind of intervention," Bruce heard himself snarl. "Some united front come to pick me up off the floor, share a few heartfelt tears, and fix me? The weak broken little victim?" He snorted. "You think you can come in here, white out everything that has happened, and fly off into the sunset? Things don't work that way, Clark. Things aren't that easy."

 

"I don't..."

 

He shoved him. Hard.

 

Clark staggered, tripped, fell.

 

"You don't what, Clark? You don't think I'm damaged? I know you do! I know the whole bloody League thinks that way! Every time I look at you or Diana or Hal I see it in your eyes."

 

He grabbed Clark by his collar and hauled him gracelessly to his feet. Slammed him against the wall.

 

"Poor Bruce," he whispered. "That's what you're all thinking. Poor Bruce with his burnt face and fragile mind. We better not question what he says in board meetings anymore because if we do we might hurt his feelings." Louder. "We better not tease him when he walks into the room. We better not go all out during training against him. We better not stand to close to him. Or too far." Louder again. "We better hide behind our perfect, unmarked, smiles and talk about the fucking weather!"

 

"I'm sorry."

 

It was a front. A lie.

 

He was just trying to drive Clark away. Because Clark didn't need to know how he had failed. He didn't need to carry that around with him. He didn't need the guilt of knowing if he'd come a bit sooner he could have really  _really_  saved him.

 

Saved him from earning the brand on his cheek.

 

It was a front. But, in that moment, it felt real. It felt true. It felt justified.

 

"I know you're sorry," Bruce snarled. "You can hardly even look me in the eye anymore, Clark."

 

"I... it's not like that."

 

Bruce punched him. "Don't lie to me!"

 

Clark fell to the ground with a cry of pain. Pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, pressed the heel of his palm to his bottom lip, and then looked down at the blood on his skin. When he looked up at Bruce his eyes weren't the soft concerned blue they had been in the bedroom. They were hard. Cold. Laced with tiny lights of red.

 

Bruce stiffened.

 

"Fine," Clark said. His voice was deadly soft. "I won't lie to you." He grabbed hold of the safe and hauled himself to his feet. "Since you're  _clearly_  dealing with this in a healthy way and don't need any help whatsoever, you may be surprised to learn that I am not." Fixed Bruce with a fallow stare. "Since clearly  _you_  don't need to talk about this with anyone, it may have slipped by you that maybe, just maybe,  _I_  do."

 

And just like that he felt his control slipping away, felt his resolve weaken, and felt his anger grow stiff and brittle inside him.

 

"Maybe something about realising I'm a sadistic rapist waiting to happen messed  _me_  up a bit," Clark continued. "Maybe realising how much I can, and would, hurt my best friend has left me needing to talk. Maybe, Bruce, just maybe, I'm not here to save you. Maybe I'm here to save myself."

 

"No," Bruce hissed. "No. You're not him." Voice cracked. "You're nothing like him."

 

"Huh," Clark stretched his face into an ugly grin showing bloody teeth. "I met the other world Batman, Bruce. His scars didn't quite match yours, his costume was a little different, and he kept stranger company."

 

"No."

 

"Circumstance meant he was a little less ridged on who he allowed to fight by his side, a little less trusting of those of us who had high level superpowers, and a little more liberal with those kryptonite stimulants." A meaningful pause. "Circumstance."

 

Bruce felt his heart pick up pace, his hands break out into a cold sweat, and his teeth clench together tight enough to hurt. "You're not!" He hissed.

 

"But funny thing is," Clark continued, "under it all, he was still... just like you."

 

"Don't," Bruce spat, "don't you fucking dare..."

 

Merciless. "Superman and I." Assured. "We're the same." Final.

 

An ugly, angry, echo of the words that had driven him to attack Superman on the day of his rescue. The sacrilege that threatened to destroy the one friend that had carried him through the brutal bargain of his body. The lie that attempted to deface everything... everything he and Clark had ever shared... could possibly ever share.

 

Bruce lunged forward with a wretched cry. This time, Clark was ready.

 

They went down in a tangle of limbs. Grabbling. Snarling. Fighting.

 

Clark knocked Bruce into the floor, clawed at his hand, and tried to pull off the ring. With a twist Bruce broke out of the weakened Kryptonian's hold and drove his knee into his gut, a fist into his jaw, and quickly reversed their positions.

 

"You're not him!"

 

"You don't know that, Bruce."

 

Clark moved the way he had taught him, used his weight rather than his strength, and slammed him back into the ground. The shock of pain to his still damaged ribs caused him to loosen his hold on the larger man. Clark pulled himself free, turned to face him, and doggedly dodged Bruce's ill conceived attack. His eyes were red.

 

Fogged. Dull. Harmless. But red.

 

He froze. Felt his heartbeat spike, his eyes widen, and his mouth go dry.

 

Clark took advantage of his weakness; yanked the kryptonite ring off his finger, flinched as his skin came in contact with the glowing green stone, and with difficulty tossed the weaponised jewelry away across the cave.

 

Bruce heard it chime against the walkway, the stone, and then splash into a puddle. He needed to find it. Had to...and then he was being pinned down by rabidly strengthening arms, pushed against the cave floor by a soon to be indestructible body, and held still by sun fuelled fingers. He struggled to swallow the flood of memories, the hard harsh familiarity, and the crippling terror that mounted whenever he saw the red flicker in those eyes.

 

"You don't know," Clark growled less than an inch from his face. "You don't know how many times I've thought of carrying you away, striping you naked, and fucking you. In the sky, in the Fortress, in every room of that massive mansion. You don't know how often I look at you and all I want is to reach out and touch you. To feel you. To feel you respond. You don't know how much I want to kiss you whenever you're working on that computer of yours. The way you chew the inside of your lip. The little frown you get when you read. You don't know how-"

 

"Then why didn't you?! Why in hell did I have to find out through him?! Like this?! Why did you have to wait for him to finish his turn before you could step forward and ask for a ride?!"

 

"It's not like that!"

 

"Get off me!"

 

Instantly Clark was up and standing at the other end of the cave.

 

Bruce lay still, stunned, for a moment staring up at the empty air above him.

 

"It's not like that Bruce," Clark said softly. "I had Lois and you..."

 

"Had?"

 

Clark was silent for a moment. "Have," he amended. "I have Lois." A deep breath. "And you were never... you were my straight guy crush. I knew you would never..."

 

"You never asked."

 

For a moment the only sounds were the soft chatter of the bats, the purr of air sliding through the vents, and the faint hum of the lights above.

 

"Would you have said yes if I did?"

 

The question hung heavy in the air and without looking over Bruce knew Clark was holding his breath. Waiting. Waiting for the answer to a question that no longer mattered. That no longer meant anything. An answer that could do nothing but hurt.

 

"You never asked."

 

Slowly, he climbed to his feet, and started back towards the steps that lead into the manor. Didn't look at Clark. Didn't acknowledge him as he walked passed. Didn't turn to see if he was following him. By the time he got to the dining room Clark was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Clark sat on top of the Fortress of Solitude and stared across the frozen desert before him. Shards of airborne ice charged like an invading army across windswept plains, struck the sides of the Fortress with angry chimes, and packed around the base of the interlaced crystal walls. Sunlight struck the stark landscape, sent jarring flashes of multicoloured light shining off every pristine particle, and illuminated his alien home in a vivid fiery blue. Underneath the sea shifted like a lurking monster waiting to be fed.

 

His jaw hurt.

 

A dull, mindless, throb of pain that was slowly receding as his cells collected the fragile rays of fleeting sunlight that touched his skin and worked to repair the damage.

 

He wished they wouldn't.

 

He wished that, for a longer time at least, he could wear the bruise, taste the blood, and feel the imprint of Bruce's fist on his cheek.

 

He wished he could experience what it felt like to carry pain like Bruce did; to be burdened with it for days, weeks, or even months. To have to work on despite it. To fight with it. Live with it. To be marked by it.

 

He wished he could know what it felt like to be scarred.

 

The ache in his jaw faded to a dull itch and then disappeared leaving a warm feeling and fresh unmarked skin in its wake.

 

Unlike Bruce his body didn't keep pain. Didn't remember it. Unlike Bruce he would never wear a scar.

 

He looked down at his right hand and the perfect, untouched, skin there. When he had found Bruce in the other world he had carved Batman's winged insignia into his double's face. Doing so he had cut open his fingers and sliced his palm... none of it showed now. Which meant none of it would show on his double either. Like him, the other world's Superman didn't store pain. Didn't mark it. Didn't scar. Like him, Bruce's rapist would be sitting somewhere looking perfect. Looking perfect even as Bruce had to wear his brand for the rest of his life.

 

And... god he'd held him down.

 

Pinned him.

 

Pressed him.

 

When he'd managed to throw away the kryptonite he should have backed off, should have offered Bruce a hand up, and tried to make peace... instead he'd held him down and told him he wanted to fuck him. Had told him that despite hearing Bruce's heartbeat spike, despite seeing the flicker of naked fear in the man's eyes, despite what he knew happened... it must have been just like being back with... God... how could he be so... so thoughtless... so cruel... so... fucking stupid! How could he do that to Bruce? Knowing what he did. Knowing what it must have been like. Knowing  _who_  he must have seemed like...

 

"You idiot," he muttered so himself. Voice a painful rasp. "You fucking idiot."

 

Bruce would never forgive him. Not now. Not after this. Their friendship was over and it was all his fault. The one secret Bruce didn't need to know - to ever know - he had shouted in his face. The one time Bruce needed space he had forced himself on him. The one time Bruce needed to be shown compassion and understanding he had pushed him back into the dark place he'd pulled him from.

 

His eidetic memory replayed the events in horrid detail. The feel of Bruce's pulse pick up under his fingers, the reflex intake of air as he jarred Bruce's still tender ribs, and the reflection of his own red eyes caught in the blue of Bruce's. He remembered the way Bruce curled his lips into a defensive snarl, the way the muscles up his body stiffened, and the hard challenging stare he had driven into him. He remembered the smell of sweat, sharper, sweeter, than usual; tainted with fear.

 

Bruce had told him to get off. He had. And the shock that had flooded the man's face was heartbreaking. He hadn't expected Clark would obey him. He had expected... he hadn't noticed that stunned expression at the time. He'd been too angry. Too upset.

 

He'd talked about Lois. And... three words later everything was different. Everything he had thought made sense became confusing and everything confusing started to make sense. Three words.

 

You never asked.

 

His memory quickly combed through the years they'd known each other and began recategorizing, redefining, revaluating... an accidental knock six years ago brushed hand against thigh... five years ago a lingering appraisal of his damaged costume... four years ago a challenging flash of blue behind the cowl as water bottle top was twisted off with teeth... three years ago hands physically, frequently, correcting his position during training... two years ago a body leaning over his shoulder to closely check a static monitor... one year ago... it stopped. Straight after Lois started. No. He was jumping ahead. Bruce never said he'd been attracted to him. He was reading subtext into situations. Misinterpreting his memories.

 

Batman had kissed him.

 

In the other world. In a time he thought Bruce gone. Dead. He and the other world's Batman had kissed. Had held each other like last minute lovers on a doomed planet. Neither truly wanting each other. But neither wanting to be alone at that moment either.

 

But if Batman kissed him... held him... mourned with him... if Batman had once loved his Superman enough to miss the man he once was so badly he clung to him just for a moment of respite from that grief... if Batman had wanted Superman... the man he had been... could Bruce have once wanted him?

 

It didn't matter.

 

Even if there was a time he and Bruce could have been together, even if there was a time when all it would have taken was a kiss and a question, that time was gone. After everything that had happened it was a miracle Bruce even looked his way at all. After the other world, the other Superman, and now his own stupid behaviour he wouldn't be surprised if Bruce was busy sharpening a kryptonite baterang with his name on it. If there was once a time... once a chance... it was over... it was gone.

 

Bruce Wayne had a horde of women he regularly indulged in and he and Lois... he noticed the position of the sun... Lois...

 

He leapt from the crystal and flew as close as he dared to the surface of the earth. Icy air billowed around him, sea water ripped apart in his wake, and the curve of the Earth fell away before him. The arctic gave way to Canadian forests, which in tern yielded to the grass lands beyond the great lakes, and finally Metropolis. It was night and the city shimmered with drunken promise as he wove through the glittering streets towards his apartment. His heart sank as he saw the balcony doors flung wide and drapes flying out into the wind.

 

He landed. Lois sat on the sofa, bare feet propped on the coffee table, and a bowl of buttery corn seeds sitting beside her. She wore a formal red dress, make up, and had her hair pinned up in a series of elaborate curls. Around her neck hung a small pendant emblazed with the house of El's famous crest.

 

"Why aren't you at the restaurant?" He asked miserably. He already knew the answer.

 

"I was," she said. "I had roasted mushroom cups stuffed with tomato jam and pesto as a starter but went all American for the main course and helped myself to some Omaha sirloin with a stuffed baked potato. Oh, and some chocolate... I don't know... but it would good. I couldn't finish it all. There is some in the fridge."

 

"I was coming to meet you."

 

She waved his words away with a polished hand. "The restaurant closed two hours ago, Smallville."

 

The program she was watching cut to a news break. Clark flinched as the now familiar footage of Bruce yelling at him rolled. Lois pressed the mute.

 

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise it was so late. The sun doesn't set up north."

 

"And a watch doesn't go with the costume," he added sarcastically.

"I'm really sorry. We'll go out tomorrow night. I'll book us a place and..."

 

Lois held up her hand. "Don't worry about it, Clark."

 

"No. That was our anniversary. It's important. We need to do something..."

 

"Seriously." She stopped him. "Don't."

 

He stood awkwardly by the window as she watched the broadcast. Grimly he looked at the engagement ring sitting on the table between them. Began counting the times he'd seen her wear it recently.

 

"TV news," she finally said with a snort. "No journalistic integrity. I mean look at this."

 

He didn't.

 

"All they talk about is what Batman said. None of them think to even look at what else is going on. See how twitchy Flash is? He looks like a child standing in the hallway listening to mum and dad fighting in the kitchen again."

 

Clark toyed nervously with the edge of his cape.

 

"And Wonder Woman," she continued. "See how stiff her mouth is? Her eyes? Like a bouncer getting ready to drag their drunken boss out of the bar. Green Lantern on the other hand is pushing back that cameraman like he's the Joker.  _Very_  touchy."

 

He finally turned toward the screen. Hal filled up most of it, teeth bared, ring lowered, and eyes blazing an ugly alien green. Lips moved. Clark knew the words without having to hear them. He remembered them.

 

_"Alright, you back up or I'm backing you up myself, buddy."_

 

"Now," Lois said as she grabbed the remote and quickly spun the news report back to the beginning. "Batman just looks like Batman. Can't get anything out of that mask. Plus he's usually camera shy so we don't know if he normally speaks like this or normally uses this body language etc. But look at Superman.  _There_  is your story."

 

"Lois."

 

"This dirt grade reporting will have you believe this is a rare moment caught on camera. But, by the look of the rest of the League, this is just an outburst in a previously tense environment. And Superman," she clucked her tongue thoughtfully, "he's in the middle of it."

 

He looked at her. "Can we not talk about this?"

 

"Just let me finish," she said easily and pointed back at the screen. Reluctantly he followed her gaze. "Normally Superman is very conscious of how he looks on camera. He's full of those small personal smiles, will prop his hands on his hips if the occasion is right, and call all the reporters by name before flying away fast enough to impress but not startle. It's almost become a routine."

 

He looked glumly at the pixelated projection of himself.

 

"But here he only has eyes for the big old B," Lois noted softly. "I went so far as to describe him as  _rapt_  in my article."

 

"You're writing an article on this?"

 

"I wrote an article on this," she corrected him. "Front page this morning."

 

"That's not right. It's not news. It's gossip."

 

"Superman and Batman in a fight? Please. War could have been declared and this would still be front page news."

 

"That doesn't make it right."

 

"Hell Clark," Lois finally snapped. "Superman and Batman in a fight  _is_  war! People are already picking sides and marching down the street for it."

 

This wasn't what he wanted to talk about right now. He didn't want to talk about Batman, about Superman, or about the jarring news report still playing in front of him. But he couldn't find the words that would safely change the topic to the ring lying hollow on the pine wood table. He couldn't wrestle up the right apology for missing dinner. He couldn't piece together the sentence that would save their relationship.

 

"But, as I was saying," she muttered, "he is rapt. He's hanging off Batman's every word. Flinching at every full stop. A broke man with a lottery ticket listening as every number but his are called."

 

"It wasn't like that."

 

"I was there, Clark."

 

He looked at her in surprise.

 

Her lips curled into a small, bitter, smile. "Rapt. Deeply engrossed or absorbed."

 

"You were the reporter for the Daily Planet," he realised. "That's why you wrote the article."

 

"You almost killed me," she informed him curtly. "When that thing hit you and you crashed down into the park you almost killed me and two other reporters." She let those words sink in before continuing. "It was close. I could have reached out and touched you. But even then, even before Batman's speech, you were... rapt."

 

He waited. Waited for her to continue. To end it.

 

"It's funny," she complied softly. Gently. "It wasn't until I saw that I realised how distant we had become. No. Distant is the wrong word. Blasé is better. Uninterested. Un-rapt." She sighed, picked up the engagement ring, and pushed herself to her feet. Walked towards him. "The way Superman looks at Batman even when Batman is saying something horrible to him... I would give anything to have you look at me that way. To drop the persona, to drop the routine, and really  _really_  look at me."

 

"Lois." Small. Hopeless. "I love you."

 

She stopped in front of him and fixed him with a hard look. "You don't know me anymore, Clark." Picked up his hand and delivered the ring into his palm. "I'm sorry."

 

She was right.

 

As much as it hurt to admit she was right. Since coming back from the other world he had hardly spoken to her and when they did speak he heard but didn't listen. He had never told her about the other world, about the other Lois, about the other Superman. It had been the first of many things he never told her. Never confided. Never shared.

 

And over the following months she had stopped telling him things until now they stood silent and staring at each other and it was too late. Too late to repair the damage with what should have been said. It was too late for words.

 

"I... I'll ask Jimmy if..."

 

"No," she planted her hand flat on his chest. On the crest there. "Jimmy doesn't know about  _this_  and I don't want you risking your identity for me. Not when you still have to find out who or what sent those robots into Metropolis."

 

"I've bunked with Jimmy before," he reminded her.

 

"Yes, and God only knows how he failed to notice the corner of the cape sticking out from under your side of the sofa."

 

"That only happened once," he defended.

 

She sighed and rubbed her temple. "It won't be hard for me to find a new apartment. I'll get a raise from Perry. He owes me." Tossed back her hair and met his gaze. "I don't want this to be messy, Clark. I did love you and I still... I still want to be friends. I want to help." A teasing smile ruined only by the water, the unshead tears, glittering in her eyes. " _And_  I still want the Superman exclusives."

 

He sucked in a shuddering breath, closed his hand around the ring, and forced a smile. It was stiff. Strained. "What about Clark Kent?" He joked. "I heard he's not a bad writer. Freelance now too."

 

"Kent?" She scoffed playfully. "Come on, Superman. The guy's good, I'll give you that, but he's no Pulitzer."

 

"Maybe one day."

 

"In your dreams, Sm..."

 

She choked back a sob, put her hand over her mouth, and quickly turned away from him. Wordlessly he stepped forward and pulled her into a tight encompassing hug. They stood like that for a long time. Arms around each other, faces turned down, and breathing ragged and horse.

 

Lois. The sassy reporter he'd met amid a tangle of stacked desks and loose papers, a pen protruding unprofessionally from her gaping blouse, and face flushed with excitement as she produced a finished article on Luthor Corp dumping chemical waste. Lois. The forward, devious, woman who had tugged the edge of his cape and beckoned him away from the crowds towards his first exclusive and a night flying around the rooftops of Metropolis. Lois. The monstrous editor that would deliver his work back covered in an obscene amount of red ink and steal his coffee before departing on mismatched heels. Lois. The brilliant, beautiful, creature that victoriously presented him with a picture of Superman with drawn on glasses, bent pair of scissors that had apparently gone up against his hair, and a low ‘got ya' whispered in his ear. Lois. The person he had bought a ring for, had planned to spend the rest of his life with, and had loved. Lois.

 

And somehow in the last few minutes that chapter of his life had ended. Ended in a simple, anti-climatic, conversation and a comforting embrace. Perhaps she had saved them years of misery tonight. Perhaps she'd saved them a bitter divorce. Perhaps she'd saved their friendship by slicing away the rotting limb that was their already dead relationship. But all he could see in that moment was the petals of a flower he'd watched and nurtured wilt and die. In that moment he couldn't think about the good they had shared or the good she had bought them. All he could think was; it's over.

 

"Do... do you want to fly?" He whispered. "Just... for old times?"

 

She looked up at him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and stepped onto his toes. It was answer enough.

 

He carried her around the same route the tourist buses took. Main Street spread like a red carpet below them in golden, glittering, splendour. Fairy lights had been strung between the trees Memorial Park and a small band played on the freshly groomed grass despite the late hour. They spun atop the highest point of LexCorp Towers like dancers in a toy jewellery box, circled marble walls of City Hall, and left the city to skim along the surface water of S.A.I dam. Force of habit took them to rest on top of the Daily Planet under the slowly rolling golden globe that had become iconic to the city's ever changing skyline.

 

"You don't have to move out," he said after a while. "I hardly spend anytime here anymore. And now that I'm freelance I can work almost anywhere."

 

She gazed across the city. "Where will you go?"

 

"The Fortress. The Watchtower."

 

"Well, that answers the question for Superman," she muttered. "Not Clark."

 

He didn't answer.

 

"Clark needs a permanent address," she reminded him. "Or he'll be declared a missing person and after a while assumed dead."

 

"Perhaps it's time."

 

She send him a dark look and for a moment he was transported back to when they were first dating and he'd dropped her while flying. It had only been for a moment and he'd pleaded an accident. The black stare she wore echoed of the glare she delivered him that night.

 

"If you kill Clark Kent, Superman, I'll do you in for murder."

 

"I'm serious, Lois."

 

"So am I," she assured him bluntly. "I've known you for a long time, Smallville. If you leave Clark behind you leave behind your connection with the human race and that is something this planet can't afford." She shivered and rubbed her shoulders. "If you leave Clark behind then all that'll be left is Superman. To be a god all the time... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

 

"Acton."

 

"Gesundheit."

 

He opened his mouth to explain that he was referencing her quote, caught the edge of a sly smile, and saved himself.

 

"Clark Kent isn't a great man," she continued after a pause. "But he is the best of men. Let him die and I don't think anyone is going to want to see the Superman that's left behind."

 

She was more right than she knew.

 

"You can still take the apartment," he said. "I'll find somewhere else."

 

"Mmm... I'm sure Batman will let you stay."

 

It was a joke, he knew, born of the blaring news reports. That knowledge didn't protect him. Didn't stop him flinching. Didn't stop him from turning away. Lois read him like an open book.

 

"I thought whatever this fight was about it had to be more than just those robots even if you did almost flatten me," she mused. Her voice was no longer that of the woman he had carried here, locked in his embrace, but the prize winning reporter that worked in the offices below. "Can I take it from that response you do actually know the address of said teammate? That's comforting. I was beginning to worry you all wore masks during your Justice League meetings."

 

His cheeks flushed.

 

"Oh Jesus." She clapped a palm to her forehead. "You do don't you?"

 

He laughed.

 

It was suddenly all that was left to do. After months of uncertainty, home wrecking guilt, and an unsteady truce between him and normality, there was nothing left to do but laugh. Laugh like he did when she first met him in costume and bluntly challenged him to name the colour of lace on her bra. He'd discovered moments later she hadn't been wearing one. He had laughed then. Laughed because of the brazen suggestion at a future. Laughed at the small, simple, shared moment. Laughed because it was better than the alternative.

 

He laughed now because it was better than crying, joked because it was better than shouting, and smiled because it was better than snarling. He laughed because there had been too much bad in the last few months, too much crying, too much shouting, and too much snarling. He laughed because it was over, everything had been said, and all that was left to do was either laugh or cry.

 

Four hours later he sat in the middle of a field, alone, and counted stars. As a child he used to wave at them as he ran between the cornfields at night. He used to wave and pretend there were alien eyes looking for him between those stars. People like him.

 

He couldn't fly back then, still sucked in a readying breath before picking up the tractors, and out running a train seemed like the greatest thing he had, and would ever, do. Everything was big. The farm was big. Smallville was big. People were big. If someone died everything changed. If someone was born everything changed again. Now... now people seemed small. Except Perry White who could still make him jump to attention with a look; his land lady jabbing him pointedly in the ribs whenever an article about Superman appeared on her doorstep; and Jimmy assuring him the Xbox was cheating.

 

Perhaps Lois was right.

 

Perhaps the difference between him and the other world's Superman wasn't a single, traumatic event, but Clark Kent. Perhaps he wasn't a ticking time bomb, but a man with a choice; a choice to stay among his adopted people or withdraw into the Kryptonian mausoleum of his alien father; a choice to fly until the planet looked small and simple, or walk and see the complex tangle of life around him; a choice to be an estranged alien or a human with the corner of his cape sticking out from his side of the sofa.

 

He hoped she was right.

 

But it was still too late.

 

She was gone. Bruce was gone. In a few short hours he had lost them both. He hadn't felt this alone since... since Jor-El told him when he ran through the fields and waved at the stars no one was waving back.


	5. Chapter 5

Blood leaked between his teeth, spilled over his bottom lip, and dripped down onto the planks of bleached white oak at his feet. The wooden grain formed twisting hungry patterns under his boots; the interwoven bodies of serpents coupling, or the sea whirling against the iron will of the tide. There was nothing beautiful in the coiling lines and knots of the polished, dead, tree. Only aggression. Only blind, ugly, instinct.

 

"Access Superman."

 

He dove behind a marble pillar just as the floor behind him was struck with twin blasts of heat vision. White wood fell like snow as he grappled up into the scaffolding adorning the side of the wall. Spat blood.

 

Bialya. He was in Bialya.

 

In a blur of motion his attacker stood in front of him, eyes blazing red, and feet hovering off the ground.

 

He was in Bialya and he was in trouble.

 

A fist closed on his cape as he flipped by and swung him against the wall. His barely healed ribs screamed in protest, the inner spine plate on his armour shattered, and another serving of blood filled his mouth to flow freely from his lips. Another fist rose, ready to crush his skull against the wall.

 

Bruce activated a sonic baterang.

 

Unused to super hearing his robotic opponent dropped him to reflexively clutch the sides of its head. Bruce kicked off the wall, leapt over the androids shoulders, and stuck a pair of small plastic explosives either side of its head. A swinging arm knocked him off balance. He threw a line. Missed. Ducked and rolled as best he could. Grunted in pain as the brace on his broken thigh shifted.

 

It was a trap. A trap set for someone a lot more powerful than him. A trap he had sprung.

 

The amazo android launched itself gracefully into the air to hover over him; its metallic jaw was framed by the small black bombs and eyes coloured a horrid familiar red. He struggled to swallow the small frantic fear those twin red lights invoked, tried to stop his hands shaking as he clawed at the compartments of his belt, tried to look threatening and in control as he pulled at the explosive trigger and a shard of kryptonite. Knew he looked like he felt; like a small, desperate, man in a broken batsuit.

 

The amazo stopped, looked at the glowing green rock in his hands, and in a blur appeared at the other end of the room. His metallic skin shivered as it began to change.

 

"Access Flas--"

 

He detonated the explosives.

 

The force was enough to knock him back onto the ground and blow the kryptonite from his fingers.

 

Amazo; a highly advanced cybernetic android with the ability to replicate the powers of any metahuman or genetically advanced alien it encounters, the signature creation of Professor Ivo created with technology stolen from S.T.A.R labs, and the weapon of choice for many villains against the Justice League. The same amazo newly equipt with a secondary long distance power absorption unit. The same unit he found in the remains of the robots that attacked Metropolis along with an encrypted code from the late Ivo that told of his capture and imprisonment in the terrorist nation Bialya.

 

Bialya. He was in Bialya. He sent the distress signal forty seven seconds ago. Cyborg would have received it at the Watchtower. The League would be in the process of deployment. Flash and Superman could be here at any second.

 

The amazo fell onto its knees and then chest. The smoking end of its neck spat black liquid.

 

"Impressive," the voice was rich, dark, feminine, and spiced with a heavy implacable accent.

 

"Not my finest work," he growled.

 

"You, a man, destroyed my machine," Queen Bee said as she stalked from the other end of the room carried by the sharp tap of heels. "My machine with the powers of a kryptonian." She wore a traditional form fitting black silk dress adorned with a series of small gems and a militaristic high collar. Gold adorned her head and arms, crowned the toe of her boots, and glittered from her ears. Dark eyes stared down at him with naked loathing. "No matter how you look at it, Batman. That is impressive."

 

"You attacked Metropolis," he spoke carefully. Slowly stood. "Risked war with the United States. Why?" His shoulder and side flared in hot protest to the movement.

 

A small, cold, smile. "You already know the answer to that."

 

Superman. She had laid a trap for Superman. The attack on Metropolis was merely an invitation for him to come and spring it. And for the long distance amazo probe to collect sample powers from his fellow league members.

 

"Who is paying you?" He snarled.

 

"There are a lot of people who would pay to see the death of Superman," she replied. "But this, Batman, isn't about money."

 

"Why then?"

 

Her smile hadn't shifted. A stiff, angry, mask. "As you so famously declared last week; Superman is dangerous. More than dangerous. A case can be made to title the man a threat to all humanity. Can you imagine what might happen if he decided to take power? To take control?"

 

He swallowed the memories. "So you would kill him."

 

"For the betterment of humanity," she said softly. "A safer world."

 

"With you in control of a kryptonian powered android? I doubt it."

 

A harsh laugh. "No, Batman. With me in control of  _three_  kryptonian powered androids." She clapped her hands. "Amazo two point two, amazo two point three, eliminate The Batman command priority alpha."

 

A panel in the wall slid back and two amazos stepped into the light. Metal faces turned towards him, processing cells shivered, monotone voices rose in stereo.

 

"Access Superman."

 

He could have done it.

 

If he dropped a sonic remote charge and some explosive baterangs he could hopefully distract them long enough to grapple back and find the kryptonite and force them into less powerful forms. A Wonder Woman power set would succumb to repeated hard damage, while mimicking Flash would leave them vulnerable to a wide scope remote electrical charge. The only other member of the League there on the day of the attack was Green Lantern and these models didn't seem advanced enough to mimic weaponry.

 

It wouldn't be easy. But he could have done it.

 

Something slammed into him. Hard. Fast. The world was lost in a sudden, suffocating, pounding of air and blurred rush of colour.

 

And then he was outside, gasping for breath, and being propped against the wall by...

 

"Clark? What are you--?"

 

"It's okay. We'll take care of it." He vanished in a blur of red and blue.

 

Bruce stared at the empty air before him for a moment before turning to look at the palace he'd broken into earlier that night. He didn't understand. Clark had pulled him from danger before but he'd never removed him from the fight. Had there been something he missed? A gas? A weapon? Something that would hurt him?

 

Inside a thunderous crash sounded.

 

He gritted his teeth and grappled onto the gutter, grunted with pain as the tool stretched his aching side, and began running stiffly across the roof back towards the main hall where Queen Bee had caught him with her first amazo android. He dropped into the yawning ventilation shaft he had entered through before, took out the panicked guards he had previously ghosted over, and re-emerged into the battle ground.

 

The scaffolding had been torn from the walls and now lay in a tangle of twisted metal across the pickled oak floor. Queen Bee stood pressed against the wall behind one of the amazos who was sparring with the Flash in a blur of lighting tipped movement. The second amazo stood in the middle of the room blasting at a blur of blue and red that danced around the pillars. Spilling from the doors at the far end of the room were robots like the ones that had attacked Metropolis.

 

He tapped the side of the cowl.

 

"Cyborg. Where is the rest of the league?"

 

"Aquaman is almost there. Man that guy can swim."

 

"I'm on route," Diana interrupted. "Ten minutes."

 

"I'm not far behind," Green Lantern said. "And I've got Arrow with me."

 

"In a giant green baseball glove," the man added. "Because that's how I roll."

 

"What's the situation?" Cyborg asked.

 

"We've got it!" Clark snarled into the link. Shot forward to slam into the offending android and smash it into the ground with enough force to send waves through the floor. Rare wood splintered and exploded into the air, shards of cybernetic adapting metals spiralled from the splintering amazo, and chunks of the demolished scaffolding hurtled up into the air to rain down around him. Bruce dropped, rolled, and sucked in a grunt of pain as a flailing robot clipped his shoulder.

 

When he looked again Flash and Queen Bee were gone, the amazo Clark had attacked lay spitting sparks on the ground, and a tide of lesser androids was rushing towards him. The red glow of their weapons danced off the edge of polished metallic bodies, highlighted stark featureless profiles, and splashed long hungry shadows across lifeless limbs.

 

Weak points. The joint in the torso, the pipelines laced up the spine, and the main compartment of their weapons. If he knocked the bolt off their heads a disrupter would put them down.

 

With what little agility his damaged body could summon, he moved. Attacked. Dodged. Fought.

 

They advanced in stiff ranks; a replacement from the previous row falling forward to slot in any he destroyed like items on a supermarket shelf.

 

Another shock wave. He was thrown into the air. Slammed against the wall. Began to fall.

 

Something caught his cape, pulled the fabric taunt, and pulled him up into a stony embrace. For the second time that night his world vanished in a flood in blurred shapes and a rush of air.

 

"No!"

 

Clark put him down outside. "I'm sorry, Bruce. The rest of the league is almost here you don't...  I'm sorry. Just... just stay here."

 

Bruce stared in shock as he shot back into the building. Snarled and reached for his grapple gun. Was halfway onto the roof before Clark reappeared, hooked an arm around his waist, and in a dizzying blur they were standing on a hillside outside the city.

 

"What are you doing?!"

 

"You're getting hurt Bruce... you're... you don't... just stay here. Please just stay here. I'm sorry."

 

He left.

 

Bruce stared after him for a moment. Stared at the hot empty night air, at the distant lights, and the white walled palace crowning the city. The sounds of the battle were lost to the desert baked wind. But despite the heat, the humidity, and the weight of his armour, he felt cold. Frozen. Fragile. Weak. Whor-With a snarl he flipped back a compartment on his gauntlet and began dialling in the commands for the batwing.

 

It took six minutes and twenty three seconds for the vehicle to arrive, fly him back into the centre of the city, and drop him midair above the palace. He landed in a flurry of memory cloth and was about to jump back into the vent when Clark appeared and grabbed him again.

 

"Please Bruce!"

 

"Let me go!"

 

Clark complied. Dropped him back on the hillside outside the city limits.

 

"Bruce," he said quickly, breathlessly, "the rest of the league is arriving and..."

 

"Take me back!"

 

Clark looked desperate. "No. To take these things apart I'm having to... you were getting hurt, Bruce! You've almost rebroken all those bones and... And this last one is better. Smarter. I can't hold back. I have to... Flash already took Queen Bee... it's not safe."

 

Bruce glared at him "I can take care of myself."

 

"Please Bruce," Clark pleaded. "Please just... I know I haven't given you any reason to trust me, I know all I've done it hurt you, and I know you probably never want to see or hear from me ever again but please... you're safe here. You're... please just... stay."

 

He began redialling the string of numbers that would bring the batwing around for a second sweep and drop off.

 

"I'm so sorry, Bruce." In a blur of motion his glove and gauntlet were pulled of his arm followed by his cowl. He blinked, blind in the darkness without the lenses, and lunged for the alien he knew had to be there. Clark evaded him. "I can't lose you again. I'm sorry."

 

A movement of air told of his departure.

 

And he couldn't believe... couldn't understand... could accept... Clark... Clark had just...

 

He needed to get back. No. That was the direction he would expect him to go. He needed to get away. He needed to find a safe place. A small place. A dark place. A place so small and dark no one would ever find him. Not even him.

 

He ran.

 

Ran down the hillside into the encompassing darkness, into the heat of the strange foreign night, and away from the flickering lights of the city. Ran until the weight of his cape felt like a body wrapped around his neck, ran until the break in his braced leg sent hot flares of dizzying pain, ran until his blood thundered in his ears like the wings of a bat... of The Bat...

 

The Bat chasing him, hunting him, glaring down at him in silent accusation.

 

Weak. Too weak to fight. Too weak to fight back. Too weak to be worthy of the winged insignia on his chest.

 

Hollow. Hurt. Helpless.

 

Whore. A desperate, powerless, pet to be pushed away, locked away, until the time came to use him. Too fragile, too weak, to be let out. To do anything but lie down and moan for a master.

 

He ran until his mind numbed, until the pain of his damaged body faded to a dull ache, he ran until his breath began to throttle him. Ran until...

 

He collapsed.

 

Crawled into a hiding place.

 

Waited.

 

The horizon was paling when Clark found him.

 

"Bruce?"

 

He opened his eyes to peer warily out at the man sinking slowly from the sky. Clark face seemed newly lined as he settled on the earth. He studied Bruce, sitting in the alcove between two rocks, and seemed to shrink into himself. Eyes distant. Mournful.

 

"Bruce. I'm so sorry."

 

"You don't do that," he heard himself mutter.

 

"Bruce?"

 

"You don't lie."

 

Clark flinched and looked down. For a long time he didn't say anything. Just stood, shoulders slumped, and face down; looking so thoroughly defeated Bruce could almost forget what he'd done. Could almost see him how he used to see him. He could almost see the friend in that face.

 

"Bruce," Clark finally whispered without looking up. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I didn't think. I... I know I've messed this up on every turn. I know I haven't been there. I know I haven't respected you. I know I shouldn't have... have forced you to stay away like I did." He lifted his hands, palms forward, as if in a peace offering. "But, you were hurt, and I had to use so much... so much power to destroy that last amazo. I didn't want to lose you." Eyes returned to Bruce. "You kept coming back and I know I shouldn't have... should have explained..."

 

Bruce turned to face him. To challenge him. "Did you carry Diana away?"

 

Clark looked stricken. "Bruce I..."

 

"Arthur? Hal?"

 

"They've got superpowers, Bruce."

 

A lump of cold gray anger rose in his throat; threatened to rip down the fragile walls of defence he had constructed, threatened to pour out of him leaving nothing but a gaping hole, threatened to smash apart the hollow shell of himself to let out the swirling bleak nothingness beneath. "I can take care of myself, Superman."

 

"Bruce..." Clark rasped, "don't... we're alone... please don't call me that."

 

"You know I can take care of myself," Bruce continued. Felt the lump of anger inside him give. Felt it stain his words. Felt it begin to pour out of him like water through a broken dam. "I always did. And you knew that. You trusted me. You respected me. You fucking cared about me once. You were my friend! You were my best friend!"

 

"I know," Clark sobbed, "god, Bruce, I'm so sorry, but I can't... I can't forget what it was like losing you... and I do care about you. I care about you so much it hurts. And in the cave when I said those things-"

 

"You think this is about what you said in the cave?" Bruce snarled in disbelief. "I don't care about the blasted cave!"

 

Clark looked stunned. "But I... I held you down. I yelled at you."

 

"And I attacked you with kryptonite!" Bruce yelled, pushing himself to his feet as he did so. "I'm not so fragile, Kent, as to end our friendship over that. I hurt you. You hurt me. We were even. We were equal." Voice dropped threateningly low. "But last night..." he shook his head, "we were anything but."

 

Clark didn't try to wipe away the tears spilling down his cheeks; didn't try to mask his grief, his horror, or wretched understanding as he stood and silently listened to the man before him; didn't try to hold himself together as Bruce ripped him apart.

 

"You took me," Bruce said, "you took me and put me out of the way. When I didn't obey you removed my power; you took my tools and left me in the dark." Through gritted teeth. "You acted as if you owned me. As if I was your property. Your pet."

 

"No," Clark protested, "that isn't what it was!"

 

"That is exactly what it was!" Bruce stormed towards the alien and shoved him as hard as he could.

 

Clark had the decency to stumble back.

 

"Do you want to know why I wanted you out of Gotham?" Bruce growled. "Do you want to know why I attacked you with the kryptonite? Do you want to know why I've been keeping you away from me since we came back from that other, fucked up, world? It's because I didn't think you deserved it. You didn't deserve to have to wade into the fucking mess my life has become. You didn't deserve the pain of trying to save a miserable fucking whore like me."

 

Clark's face paled. "Bruce..."

 

"Because I knew you would," he continued relentlessly. A dog on a bone. His voice a broken angry rasp. "I knew even if I told you how shallow, how empty, how hollow Bruce Wayne really is, you wouldn't stop trying to make me whole. I knew even if I told you everything, how weak I was, you would still try to wipe this thing off my face and tell me I am strong. I knew you would destroy yourself for me." A sharp, shuddering, breath. "But maybe I was wrong," he hissed, "maybe you do deserve it."

 

"You're not a whore, Bruce." Clark muttered looking straight into his eyes for the first time since he'd landed. "You're not."

 

The last fragile semblance of control splintered under the sincerity in those eyes and Bruce felt himself give, felt the weight of swallowed emotions suddenly spill, and felt the secrets he'd left unshared pour out of him in an ugly torrent of anger.

 

"I am a whore!" He roared. "I sold myself to give you time, to keep Superman away from the rebels, to try... fuck! It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter because I let him fuck me. I lay down and took it. Because it hurt so much to fight, because it was the only thing I had, because... because it could get me something. Something other than just an icy prison cell and him!"

 

Clark stared at him in unmasked horror. "You... you  _let_ him...?"

 

"You have no idea what it's like, Clark. Waiting. Waiting for hours just to be held down and raped. Fighting. Fighting so hard when it all... when it's all hopeless... and it's just pain...  At least this way... at least I got something... at least..."

 

Some part of him realised he was crying. Ugly, horse, gasps of air accompanied with hot, heavy, tears.

 

"Bruce..."

 

Clark reached out a hand to touch his arm. He knocked it away, composed his features, and fixed the man with a hard, cold, look.

 

"Yes, Clark," he croaked, "I whored myself to him. And you  _knew_  that. Everyone  _knew_  that. We could have gone our whole lives without ever having to  _say_  that. Without ever having these words between us. I whored myself to him. That is something I have to live with. But I can. I can live with it and I will. I'm not a fragile little lap dog to be snatched up off the ground whenever another dog enters the room."

 

Clark met his gaze. Held it. Bombarded Bruce with his guilt and grief. "Bruce... I can't... I was so... so scared... you're so... breakable..."

 

"Don't lie to me! You want to lock me away! To keep me away! You want to take everything I own and make me beg to get a scrap of it back! Make me fuck you just for a fucking belt!"

 

He sounded hysterical. Mad. He didn't care. Couldn't care. Not then.

 

"No Bruce!" Clark tried desperately. "I can't... I can't lose you again. I'm terrified... it... it would destroy me..." Small. Fragile. Hopeless. "I love you."

 

"You love me?" Bruce coughed out a course bark of fake laughter. "You love me but you don't respect me, you don't trust me, you don't see me as anything more than a pretty plaything." He drew back his lips into a snarl. "Love? You don't know the meaning of the word." And delivered the finishing blow. "You're just like him."

 

It was a lie.

 

It was enough.

 

Enough to break the final shreds of Clark's wavering resolve, enough to rip away the last pieces of composure holding the man together, and enough to expose his heartbreak in horrific, rendered, detail across his features. He dropped with as little grace as possible to sit on the ground and stare hopelessly up at him. Hair a messy tangle, eyes rimmed red, and face leached of colour.

 

"Lois thought my human side... she thought it was what... was..." he didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to. He didn't believe it. Not when Bruce was the one to lay the accusation at his feet. Not when Bruce finally confirmed the fear he'd been nurturing since he'd first fallen into the other world.

 

Bruce's anger slowly dripped out of him in the following silence, taking with it his last reserves of energy, and leaving him feeling sick and drained. He swayed on his feet for a moment before finally crouching down to sit opposite Clark on the rocky flat of ground and watch the sun rise.

 

Neither moved, neither spoke a word, neither looked at the other until the sky had turned a bright hungry blue and the sun sat over the distant mountains. Bruce squinted into the impossibly bright, pale, light and felt the hot, dry, air assault his skin.

 

Clark vanished and appeared seconds later with his glove, cowl, and a bottle of water. Bruce took all three wordlessly and looked up into Clark's eyes, saw the pain there, the defeat, and the crippling resignation.

 

"I'll never take you or what's yours away like that again," Clark said. "I promise. I won't touch you again."

 

The words were constructed, the tone careful, and the delivery simple and honest. It wasn't an invitation to save their friendship, wasn't an impassioned attempt to recover what had been lost that night, nor even an olive branch to bridge the gap. It was a statement of fact.

 

It hurt him more than it had the right to.

 

"You're not a whore, Bruce," Clark continued softly. "No more than that girl you saved."

 

"That's different..." he heard himself begin.

 

"No, Bruce," Clark insisted gently. "It isn't." The man looked down, back up, and met his eyes. "I'm sorry."

 

Bruce realised what was happening. Felt a mixed lump of panic rise in his throat. Tried to find the words that would stop him, that would reel back the disaster this had become, that would salvage at least some of what he had destroyed.

 

Clark shot up into the sky and disappeared into the dizzying expanse of sky before Bruce could utter a single sound.

 

Before he could say he was sorry, before he could say he had been angry and hurt, before he could say Clark was nothing like Superman.

 

Before he could say he loved him too.

 

He stared upward until the blaze of the sun forced his eyes away. And suddenly he knew he couldn't do this without Clark. He couldn't keep fighting through it all knowing he'd wounded him. Couldn't keep pretending he was free of the Fortress, of Superman, or the brand on his cheek. Not without him.

 

He pulled the communicator from his cowl and hooked it onto his ear. Alfred answered on the second ring.

 

"I take it you're still in Bialya-"

 

"I need to go to Metropolis."

 

A brief pause. "Very good, sir," the man said. "And, if I may be so bold, it is about time."


	6. Chapter 6

"What do you think?"

 

She never looked at him. Never met his gaze. Just sat, poised, and stared at the wall with dark painted eyes. A finger, garnished in rings, tapped the table top between them impatiently.

 

"I'm sorry?"

 

"What do you think?" She repeated. Slower. As if he was particularly stupid and she on the edge of her patience. "Do you honestly think I was wrong? Do you think Luthor wrong?" Her voice dropped an octave. "Can you, Mr. Kent, honestly tell me you don't fear the day Superman goes mad?"

 

Every day.

 

He sat in the Bialyian embassy in Washington D.C across from Queen Bee of Bialya and tried to think of how Clark Kent; the journalist, the reporter, the man; would respond to that question.

 

"I-I'm not sure he will," he attempted. "He's always been a hero."

 

"And what happens when he decides he's tired of being a hero?" The woman countered quickly. "What happens then?"

 

He didn't answer. Couldn't. Couldn't because he knew the answer too well. Knew it in horrific, brutalizing, detail. Knew it in the short, simple, memory of Gotham under siege. Knew it every time he closed his eyes and saw Bruce on the edge of the desert in Bialya crying his body's last reserves of water.

 

She studied his blank expression and snorted. "You Americans are all the same. You preach democracy, freedom, and justice but you can't see the bigger picture; you can't see how letting this one man exist is a threat not only to your nation but the whole world. You can't see the danger of letting him live, let along letting him live in secret, despite the massive power at his command."

 

Clark had stopped taking notes. Stared at the lined page before him. Stared at microscopic flaws in the pressed mineral and saw bruises that matched his fingertips, orders that matched his voice, and a brand that matched his crest.

 

"I... I..."

 

"Would you allow a baby the trigger to nuclear war? A mad man? Would you give unto any one person the ability to destroy on a whim? What sense, what safety, is there in letting this man hold enough power to destroy this planet? And how can you be so naive to think that power won't eventually corrupt him? To pretend it hasn't already?"

 

Bruce sitting on a bed with a belt across his lap. A belt Clark hadn't looked twice at. Hadn't even taken with him. A belt Bruce had sold himself for. Suffered for...

 

"Strip away that majestic cape and those pretty blue eyes and you'll find a monster far worse than anything this planet has ever conjured up."

 

A man in a cape with his face who had taken over the world, who had hunted Batman to the point of obsession, who had held down and hurt Bruce... a man who, underneath it all, was no different than him.

 

"He's history's next infamous dictator waiting to happen."

 

"Funny," the door behind him opened and closed followed by a pair of heels that strutted towards him, "I thought  _you_  were the owner of that most prestigious title."

 

Queen Bee looked up and carefully rearranged her features into a cold glare. "Miss Lane," she greeted. "I was wondering when you would arrive."

 

"Me too," Lois said. "The traffic out there is horrific." She landed a palm on his shoulder. "Thanks for warming things up for me, Smallville."

 

He glanced up and saw the masked concern in her eyes. She'd been listening by the door; had heard Queen Bee's brutal assessment of his superhero identity and his own lack of response; usual even for the stammering reporter.

 

"You can leave if you like. I'll take it from here."

 

"It's my article," he muttered reluctantly. "I have to be here."

 

"Ah yes," she sat down beside him, "you're independent now. I forgot. Well, do you mind if I take the reins on this one? For old times sake."

 

Before he could respond she had turned back to the woman sitting on the other end of the room. Queen Bee looked at Lois like a large cat seeing the approach of another predator.

 

"Now, I may have misheard but I believe you were saying something about Superman. I don't know what you were doing wasting your time with Kent here," a quick tap on his shoulder, "no offense," before turning back to Bee, "but everyone knows I'm the go to girl for that big hunk of blue."

 

Through gritted teeth. "I was explaining my reason for attacking Metropolis."

 

"And that reason would be Superman?"

 

"Yes." Queen Bee asserted. "I sought to stop him. He is a danger to all mankind."

 

"And when you finished stopping him? Are we meant to believe you intended to donate that army of robots to build shelters for the poor? To help with that oil spill recently? Or perhaps feed the nation you are slowly but surely starving?"

 

Rage flashed unchecked across Queen Bee's features. "How dare you! I run my country as I see fit! That is not the issue in question here!"

 

"No," Lois continued, calm as ever, "it most certainly is not. The issue in question is why you issued an attack against an American citizen on American soil." She leant forward. "And why now? You've never shown much interest in Superman before. But now you want his head on a platter."

 

Clark realised he was staring gratefully at Lois and quickly looked back down at his note book and began transcribing the conversation. The next word out of the woman's lips stopped him.

 

"Joker."

 

Lois blinked. "What?"

 

"A few months ago the criminal your media refers to as ‘Joker' attempted to destroy Metropolis," the woman explained. "He failed. He also disappeared for a short time along with a few key members of the Justice League."

 

Clark felt his stomach twist painfully inside him. This couldn't be happening. Not now.

 

"So?" Lois said. She couldn't hide the curiosity in her voice.

 

"You assumed them off world," Queen Bee continued, "they were, but not in the way one would expect. They were on another world. A parallel world. A world in which Superman had taken over. In which Superman was the supreme ruler."

 

Lois shot a small questioning look towards him. He kept his head down. Breathing regulated.

 

"Joker told you this?" Lois forced a laugh. "And you believed him? Joker? I hate to break it to you but I wouldn't put much stock in anything that came out of his mouth."

 

"No?" The woman leant forward. "If the records of his therapy were still available I would advise you track them down. Perhaps it is a lie. If so it is a highly elaborate and detailed one."

 

Lois quirked an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't these records still be available?"

 

Queen Bee shrugged. "Perhaps I was not the only one who was... concerned by the possibility of an out of control Superman. Or," her brows sank in mock speculation, "perhaps Superman himself doesn't want any forewarning of a coming take over."

 

"Right," Lois said in disbelief. "That sounds likely."

 

Queen Bee scowled. "You're as ignorant as can be expected of a commoner. I shouldn't have presumed anything more from this backwards thinking country."

 

"Can I quote you on that?"

 

It took her a few seconds to realise her mistake.

 

"That is not relevant!"

 

"Really?" Lois said in feigned surprise. "I suppose you inviting two of the most prolific Superman journalists for an interview isn't relevant either."

 

"No," she hissed, "it is not."

 

"Good. Because some might think you're trying to shift the spotlight from you to Superman in the hopes of painting a few false shades of grey into your story." She leant forward. A cat reaching, claws extended, after a wounded mouse. "Some might say you're seeking to tarnish his image with empty threats in order to turn the public eye away from your recent terrorist activities. Some might say you're trying to trick the media into printing a completely different story than the one that's on the table here."

 

Queen Bee lurched to her feet. "I did not allow you in here so you could question me you little bitch! This is meant to be my story!" Black eyes burnt. "Mine!" Painted nails dug into the tabletop.

 

"Unlike where you're from you don't have control over the press, Bee," Lois said as she pushed herself elegantly to her feet. Picked up her bag. "If I were you I would sit down and get comfortable. The second you step out the door of this embassy I think you'll find the boys from federal defence will want a word." Turned to go. "Either way, you're in prison, and boy is that a happy headline."

 

Clark leapt to his feet, stammered through a host of tangled apologies, and darted after his fellow reporter perhaps a tad too fast.

 

He caught up with her as they passed back out through a hotchpotch security and onto American soil once again.

 

It was late and overcast and the political centre of the city looked grey stretched out before them. The last tourists of the day marched between buildings, an assortment of disfigured pigeons clustered on the cement, and in the distance the Hall of Justice stood under a pale white arch of marble.

 

"What a bitch, huh?" Lois muttered.

 

He pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Thanks for dealing with her for me."

 

"Yeah, well, I could tell you weren't handling it very well." A meaningful look. "You know she was just trying to grab power. This had nothing to do with Superman. That's just her excuse."

 

He sucked in a steadying breath of air. "I know." Put his glasses back on. "I shouldn't have let her get to me."

 

She nodded, looked away, looked back. "Are you flying back to Metropolis tonight?"

 

"Yes."

 

"How?"

 

"By..."

 

"Plane?"

 

"No..."

 

"Good." She strutted towards a hire car, popped open the boot, and quickly pulled out a suspicious looking cardboard box.

 

"Lois?"

 

"It's homemade wine," she said with a grunt as she heaved it onto her hip. "My aunt makes it and it tastes divine. Whenever I come down here I pick up a box. But, there is no airline that'll let that much unknown liquid onto the plane." Pushed it into his arms. "You can keep a bottle of it in payment."

 

He'd been running Lois's errands since he'd first met the woman. He knew better than to argue. Supposed it was a sign that everything was okay between them after the break up. It was a strange comfort knowing if no one else was, at least his ex was looking out for him.

 

"Are you sure you're alright, Smallville? You seem very..." she fished for the word. "Despondent."

 

"I'm fine."

 

"Is..." she licked her lips. "Is what Queen Bee said true? Did you go to another world?" Eyes locked onto his. "Did you fight another you? An evil you?"

 

He grimaced. "It's not that simple."

 

"He wasn't evil?"

 

"No I..." am not good.

 

He didn't say the words. Didn't want to have to listen to her misplaced sympathy or wade through her torrent of denial. Didn't want to have this conversation again. Not ever again.

 

"I should go. Where do you want me to put these?"

 

"Oh..." she looked at the box of bottles, back up to his face, and then away. She knew she no longer had the right to demand more information from him. Not on this. They were no longer intimate enough for such a privilege. "Just... in the kitchen. I'll deal with them when I get back in a few days."

 

"Okay. Thanks again for saving me in there."

 

"Sure. No problem."

 

He walked until he found an empty alley he could slip into, change into his costume, and rocket up into the sky unnoticed with a box of wine and a bundle of clothes in his arms.

 

He flew slowly.

 

It was dipping into night by the time he arrived in Metropolis and dropped towards the old apartment he had shared with Lois.

 

Someone sat on the balcony railing.

 

He froze.

 

It was Bruce. Dressed in a white shirt, black pants, and hanging his bare feet over the street below. Bruce.

 

No.

 

His face was unmarked. Symmetrical. Clean.

 

The other world's Batman? How? Why? He felt a sickening twist of dread in his stomach. Had something happened in the other world? Had Superman escaped? What if he'd come here? What if Batman was hunting his double across the multiverse?

 

He landed on the balcony, dropped the wine at his feet with a loud clatter, and turned to face the man. To face the next battle.

 

"What's happened?"

 

Cool blue eyes turned to regard him.

 

"Do you need me?"

 

A pause. "Yes."

 

He stepped forward. "Is it Superman? Is he here? Do you need me to stop him?"

 

His face sank into a small, sad, look.

 

"Batman?"

 

"You've not spoken to me like that since..." his voice trailed off.

 

The man slowly lifted his sleeve and ran it roughly across his right cheek. The fabric came away coloured the hue of his skin as his other hand reached up and peeled off the remainder of his disguise. Revealed the withered red brand of Superman on the edge of his jaw reaching up towards his cheekbone.

 

Clark's throat tightened. "Bruce?"

 

A small nod.

 

"Oh..." he retreated a step, "I'm sorry... I thought..."

 

"I know."

 

For what seemed like an age the pair just looked at each other across the yawning space between them.

 

Clark desperately tried to think of something to say. Anything. Anything that would make this situation slightly less unbearable. Anything that would stop him standing there like a deer caught in the headlights.

 

"What's in there?"

 

"I... I'm sorry...?"

 

Bruce nodded towards the cardboard box.

 

"Oh," Clark said with a forced fleeting smile. "Lois's wine."

 

The man raised an eyebrow.

 

"Her aunt makes it."

 

Bruce's expression did not change.

 

"The airlines don't let unidentified liquid onboard," he tried to explain. "I brought it from D.C so she didn't have to have it shipped."

 

"You're bootlegging."

 

A heartbeat later. "Yeah. I guess."

 

And then they were back. Back to the awkward, extended, silence. And Clark was again fishing for the right thing to say but it was as if his mind had frozen over and all he could see were shadows under the surface.

 

"I..."

 

Bruce regarded him for a moment. Waiting. When it became obvious he wasn't going to continue Bruce sighed, swung his legs back over the railing, and walked toward the discarded box. Clark shrank away from him as he passed. He ignored him. Crouched by the box and pulled out a bottle, regarded it, and replaced it only to pull out another.

 

He repeated this process until Clark finally managed to find and voice the words in his head.

 

"What are you doing here, Bruce?"

 

The man paused, tested the weight of the bottle in his hand, and slowly stood. "I was looking for you," he said without turning around. "When I came in and saw most of your things either gone or in boxes I was going to leave. I don't know why I didn't." He looked up. "I guess I'm lucky you run errands for your ex."

 

There was a question buried in that statement. His grim silence answered it.

 

"I'm sorry." Bruce said. "I thought you and Lois were eternal."

 

"So did I." A small bitter smile. "Guess not."

 

They once again fell into an uneasy silence.

 

Clark watched warily as Bruce read the handwritten label on his selected bottle, silently asked permission, and pulled the cork with his teeth. The scent of spice and fermented apricots lifted, soft as a sigh, into the night air. Clark felt a treasonous sting of want shoot through him as the man wrapped his lips around the bottle neck and tipped a portion of the sparkling gold liquid down his throat.

 

"W-why are you here?" He asked again. Voice a low rasp. "I thought... I thought you never wanted to see me again."

 

The words hung like daggers in the air. An invitation for the man to utter the last, final, farewell, and end their broken relationship once and for all.

 

Bruce swallowed the wine, licked his lips, and offered the bottle to Clark. His hand was shaking.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

Clark blinked. "What?"

 

"I... in Bialya... you..." he sucked in a sharp sudden breath of air and forced the words out like a child recounting a memorized speech; tone detached and every word carefully timed. "You took me away from the fight, took away my gadgets, and left me. I became irrational. I ran and hid." He paused, looked at him like a hiker looks at an unstable path before continuing. "You came to try and apologize but I was angry and hurt and I wanted to hurt you back. I wanted to..." he stumbled. Took a breath. Continued. "I wanted to hurt you and so I said what I knew would hurt you most. I told you... what you didn't need to know... and I said you were just like someone who... who you're not like. I lied. I'm... fuck... I'm not good at this..." he turned away, turned back. "I felt so used and I was just so angry and... I'm... I'm sorry, Clark."

 

Clark stared at him, mouth slightly open, and the uncorked bottle held forgotten in his hand.

 

"I don't want our friendship to end and I... I..." Bruce looked close to a panic attack. "I... fuck... I..."

 

"Bruce?"

 

"Love... you... too."

 

It felt as if the Earth's Axis shifted. Everything changed. In that moment... everything... everything he thought was fluid and became set in stone, everything he thought he couldn't change suddenly fell into his hands, and everything... everything he thought was impossible...

 

Bruce stood, turned slightly away from him, and analysed his reaction. Pale blue eyes flicked from feature to feature. Reading. Interpreting. Deciphering. But Clark was frozen. Struck. His features locked in an expression of stunned disbelief.

 

Bruce swore, snatched the bottle from his hand, and turned to look out at the darkening city.

 

"Fuck it," he snarled, "I didn't mean... fuck," he tipped a disproportionate amount of the wine into his mouth. Swallowed. "I didn't mean to come in here like this just after Lois and..." another lengthy drink, "fuck it. This isn't how it was meant to happen."

 

Clark knew he was meant to say something. To do something. Anything. He just... couldn't... not when Bruce had just... had just...

 

The twilight shadows danced across chiselled features as Bruce sighed and turned away from the glittering city below him. His shirt hung square off his shoulders as he walked carefully around Clark to head inside. The rapidly emptying bottle was once again pressed against his lips.

 

He was limping.

 

Clark peeked at the bone and flinched.

 

The movement seemed lend him control over his motor functions and he quickly raked his hand through his hair and looked around for some stimuli to jump start his brain. Saw only Lois's collection of homemade wine. It would have to do. He hoisted the box quickly into his arms and sped inside to put it on the kitchen bench.

 

"I... um..." his eyes flicked across the handwritten labels on the bottles within. "Which wine did you pick?"

 

Bruce watched him from where in stood, out of place, in the middle of the room. His hair was tussled from the wind, face already picking up colour from the alcohol, and bare feet protruding from the hem of tailored pants. He looked... not good... no... he looked...

 

"Apricot."

 

...vulnerable. The usual flash of condescending intelligence had vacated his eyes leaving them to peer at him in barely concealed nervous defeat, his fingers; normally practised and precise toyed with the fraying edge of the bottle's label, and his heart hammered loud and fast enough to break apart from the usual harmonic sounds of his body.

 

He was waiting for Clark to gently, firmly, push him away. To deny or ignore the words shared between them. Words normally reserved for lovers.

 

"I..." Clark tried. "I'm..."

 

Bruce dropped the wine bottle onto the table and started towards the door. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to sound the way it did. I didn't realise you and Lois had finished. Our friendship has always..."

 

Clark sped to block his path.

 

"...been enough for me." Bruce finished slowly, looking up at him.

 

"Don't go," Clark said softly. "It's okay. I just... I thought you hated me."

 

Bruce studied him carefully. Waited for him to continue.

 

"And I... I wouldn't have blamed you. I'm sorry I did those things to you in Bialya I was... I should have handled it better. I know that. It's just ever since the other world I've been terrified of losing you. It almost destroyed me when I thought I'd killed you."

 

"He'd," Bruce corrected stiffly.

 

"He'd," Clark amended, "when I thought he'd killed you."

 

They stood for a time in silence and stared at each other. Slowly Clark became aware of how close they were; their toes were almost together on the plush carpet, the edge of his cape reached out and touched the other man's calf with every gust of wind creeping from the open balcony doors, and the spiced caress of Bruce's breath brushed softly, sensually, against his face.

 

Unconsciously Clark felt himself lean forward. Felt his head tilt slightly. His lips part...

 

He stopped.

 

Close. They were so close and yet still no part of them touched. Couldn't touch. Not when...

 

"What are you waiting for, Clark?"

 

Each word sent a gush of hot, wine scented, breath against his lips. So close...

 

"I..." he swallowed, "I promised I wouldn't..." whispered, "touch you again."

 

A low, angry, growl. "For God's sake, Clark."

 

An arm landed on his shoulder, a hand tangled in his hair, and suddenly Bruce was kissing him. Rough and angry.

 

Clark staggered back, felt his back hit the wall, and Bruce's body collide, press, against his. A tongue pushed aggressively between his teeth and swept into his mouth like an invading army laying claim to new territory. The hand on his head closed into a fist, seized a handful of his hair, and pulled his head back.

 

Plundering. Possessing. Pillaging.

 

Bruce was standing on his feet, rocked up onto his toes, taking the high ground and kissing, shoving, biting... biting so hard it would wound a normal person... biting so hard it must hurt him...

 

Attacking... attacking him with a desperate need to dominate... to be in control... to be the one hurting and not the one being hurt...

 

Clark let him.

 

Let him crush him against the wall, let him ravage his lips, and let him push into him; invade him, and claim him. He yielded to him until Bruce suddenly stopped, sucked in a sharp breath of air, and drew back with a low, pained, snarl.

 

"No. Fuck. I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

 

"It's alright." He reached out, cupped the side of Bruce's head in his hand, and guided the man's lips back against his. Soft. Gentle. Forgiving.

 

Bruce sank into the kiss. Surrendered to it with a careful movement of his lips; a grateful exchange of breath; and a warm, apologetic touch of tongue along bitten lips. Rearranged his arms to wrap around Clark's shoulders freeing Clark to finally pull the man into his embrace.

 

It could have been moments or hours later when Bruce carefully pulled apart their lips and, keeping their bodies together, moved to rest his forehead against Clark's. Sighed. There was something pained in that breath. A hitch. A scrape as it slid from his throat.

 

"You were right," Clark whispered.

 

"Hmm?"

 

"Apricot."

 

A small, shared, laugh.

 

And in that moment everything finally  _finally_  began to feel right again.

 

Whole.

 

True.

 

Good.

 

Bruce wasn't holding him anymore. He leant into him. Hung off him. Breathing slow and regular.

 

Clark opened his eyes and glanced through the man's skull at the electric glow of brain activity. He was asleep.

 

He tipped him carefully into his arm, lifted off the ground, and floated into the guest bedroom. Bruce didn't wake as he was settled onto the bed, didn't move as Clark wrapped a healthy amount of blankets around his body, and didn't stir as he pushed one last hopeful kiss onto his lips. He slept the heavy, healing, sleep of the truly exhausted.

 

Clark left.

 

Floated over the city and gazed unseeing at the people below.

 

He tried to make sense of what had happened; to understand how the world could change so swiftly, so suddenly, into something so alienated from what it was when he woke that morning. He tried to figure out how something so sure and so bleak had became something so uncertain and yet so tentatively hopeful.

 

Because if Bruce loved...

 

He glanced back through the walls at the sleeping man. He'd turned. His face was turned away, body curled into a tight ball, and the withered red brand sat low and exposed on his cheek. Ugly. Angry. Finite.

 

The promise, the scar, which promised there would always be something between them. The brutal reminder that the symbol on his chest, the face on his head, hadn't always been that of a friend. The cruel, inescapable, memento of the man he could have been.

 

Could be.

 

He turned away.

 

Flew away.

 

Tried to forget the echo of Queen Bee's words in his mind, the now redundant accusation Bruce had stabbed him with in Bialya, and the pain stained words of the other world's Superman as he clutched at his bleeding face.

 

No. He could be better than that. Would be.

 

If Bruce wanted to be with him or not he wouldn't hurt the man anymore. Wouldn't leave the man in pain anymore.

 

He landed on the nightclub strip beside a stunned flock of painted women and held out his hand.

 

"Excuse me," he said with the brightest smile he could muster, "could I borrow someone's phone? I need to make a call."


	7. Chapter 7

Bright.

 

Everything was too bright.

 

And loud.

 

He frowned, opened his eyes, and looked around a whitewashed room. The sun peered between gaping curtains to splash an indecent amount of light across the simple white sheets and pillows. The window was slightly open and outside the murmur of the city was close and constricting, broken by the shouts and laughter of tourists, and the shrill chirps of stray birds.

 

Metropolis.

 

He felt a sick sinking feeling in the base of his stomach.

 

Metropolis...

 

The memories of the previous night began to trickle through his mind in slow, torturous, detail.

 

He'd arrived at an empty apartment, picked the lock, and... he'd kissed Clark. He. Had. Kissed. Clark. Pushed him against the wall, drew his head back, and stolen his mouth in a hungry, plundering,  _punishing_ , attack. And Clark had let him. Clark had responded with open lips to a deep, warm, welcoming mouth and a soft, understanding, return kiss when he was done. A kiss that had led onto a simple, shared, embrace. There he'd slowly allowed the weight of the last few months drag him down, allowed his weathered and wounded body succumb to itself, and slowly allowed himself to drift into a deep, dark, dreamless sleep.

 

He had fallen asleep in his arms.

 

Clark.

 

He'd been so safe, so kind, so... unlike... so unlike his counterpart it was impossible to even conceive the two were doubles; to even imagine they had the same DNA, the same early history, and the same distant, definitive, origins. It was impossible to even find a single similarity between the pair.

 

Clark.

 

He had kissed him.

 

Told him he loved him.

 

And now he was waking up in his apartment, in his city, after falling asleep in his arms.

 

Clark.

 

This wasn't part of the plan. This wasn't what he intended when he came here. This wasn't what he... he didn't have any contingencies for this. He didn't have any plans, phases, or... he had never even considered the possibility... not seriously... not after what had happened in the other world... not when...

 

Clark.

 

He'd ignited a romantic relationship with Clark.

 

A romantic relationship.

 

Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, Prince of Gotham, and masked vigilante, in a romantic relationship with Clark Kent, independent journalist, blue eyed boy from Kansas, and last son of Krypton.

 

A romantic relationship.

 

Fuck.

 

He pushed back the covers, swung himself off the mattress, and stumbled into the room. He could fix this. They hadn't said anything official. Hadn't done anything more than kiss.

 

He had been drinking; he could blame the alcohol, apologize, and leave. He could end this before anyone could get hurt.

 

He pushed through the door into the main room and began speaking.

 

"I'm sorry Clark but I don't think this thing we may have started last night is a good idea. I know I... initiated much of what happened between us and I meant what I said when... "

 

No one was there.

 

"Clark?"

 

He walked deeper into the room. The door to the master bedroom was open showing a queen sized mattress under untouched sheets. The half empty bottle of apricot wine he'd been drinking last night sat abandoned on the table right where he had left it. A picture frame on the wall was crooked where he'd pushed Clark into it. There was no sign of the man.

 

He swallowed the bitter dry taste that welled on the edge of his tongue. This was good. It likely meant last night hadn't meant anything to him, he had realised the absurdity of the suggestion there, and was letting Bruce escape with as much dignity as he could. He could walk out of here and pretend last night never happened.

 

Bruce ignored the loud, bright, apartment and the glitzy glittering city beyond, and found his shoes and jacket. There was a small disguise kit in the pocket and he took it into the bathroom and quickly covered the brand on his cheek with a patch and a plastering of makeup. It wasn't perfect and pressed the scar tissue uncomfortably into his cheek but it worked; in the mirror staring back at him was a bed messy, soft skinned, scar free, Bruce Wayne.

 

He was heading towards the door when blur of red and blue flew in the window-

 

"Good. You're up."

 

\--and shot into the spare bedroom. Made the bed in a fraction of a heartbeat and then zoomed back to materialise as Clark in full costume before him.

 

"I don't really live here anymore," he said. "But I didn't want to wake you." Took note of his clothes and direction of travel. "Oh... are you leaving?"

 

"I was."

 

"Do you need a lift?"

 

Bruce blinked.

 

"I'm more environmentally friendly that any working aircraft," he said with a nervous fleeting smile. "Faster too."

 

"Bruce Wayne flew into Metropolis," he replied. "He needs to fly out."

 

"Technically," Clark said, that same smile darting across his features, "he would be."

 

That smile. A small bend of lip that was distinctly reminiscent of the broad, glowing, grins he used to show him before... before the other world... before the other Superman... before he'd messed everything up for a belt.

 

The same smile he'd been privy too when all that stood between them was air.

 

He needed to escape. Needed to get away before he could change his mind; before he could confuse the situation and their relationship even more; before he could...

 

"Bruce?"

 

He walked around him and strode for the door. Clark matched his pace and floated beside him.

 

"Hey... are we alright? I mean... if you're not happy with..."

 

"Clark... I don't think..."

 

"We don't have to make anything of this if you don't want to, Bruce. You know that, right?"

 

"I want..." He reached the door and stopped. Tried to find the words he'd said to the empty apartment. Tried to reconstruct the resolve that had driven him from the bedroom. Tried to disconnect himself from the alien hovering next to him. From Clark. "I want..." No. This wasn't about what he wanted. This was about what was right. What was good. This was about Clark.

 

"I know this must be hard for you," Clark said. "I know I must bring bad memories with me, and I understand if you don't... If last night didn't mean anything..."

 

"No," he heard himself say. "It did. I just... I'm not good at this."

 

He risked another look at Clark. Saw the man's eyes soften and the corners of his lips turn back up into that blasted beautiful smile.

 

He had to get out. He had to...

 

He had opened the door and was stepping into the corridor before Clark grabbed his arm, stopped him.

 

"Wait! When can I see you again?"

 

He didn't answer. Didn't look at him.

 

"Can I come over tonight?"

 

"I'm on patrol tonight."

 

"Afterwards then?"

 

He couldn't look at him. He needed to end this before he hurt Clark. Before he destroyed their friendship so totally it could never recover. He needed to even if all he wanted was...

 

He nodded.

 

Left.

 

It was three hours later, onboard a private jet; moments after the pilot announced their descent into Gotham, when he pressed his forehead into the heel of his palm and finally said what he should of in front of Clark. Finally pieced the raging thoughts inside his head into a simple string of sentences. It began with two words.

 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry but I don't want to hurt you. I do love you. I have nothing but love and respect who you are and what you stand for, even if I don't always show it. But that's the thing. I've never been able to show you how I really feel. Not until it's too late." A deep breath. "And it is too late. I'm sorry Clark but I don't know if I can ever look at you and not see pieces of him. Even if it's just cosmetic I... I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to destroy our friendship. I don't want to go somewhere we can never come back from. I'm sorry and I wish... I wish we could have done this before the other world. Before everything became so messed up. Before I messed everything up." He paused. Dwelt on the thought for a long time before finally voicing it. "You deserve someone better than me, Clark." He told the empty cabin. "You deserve someone who would have stayed strong. Someone who would have kept fighting. Someone who would have waited for you." He leant back and pushed his hair from his eyes. Stared out the window at the city reaching up to claim him. "Someone like you deserves someone... whole."

 

Alfred met him at the airstrip, scolded him for spending too much time on his leg without an exoskeletal brace, and guided him into the backseat of a polished black car. He slumped into the seat, neglected the belt, and looked out at the low looming streets beyond from the safety of the car's leather interior.

 

Unlike the absurdly sunny skies in Metropolis, the clouds above Gotham spoke of coming rain. In the distance, creeping towards Arkham Island, the purple black body of a storm growled in hungry anticipation. Whirling tendrils of cloud flared wide like the wings of a massive bat on the hunt.

 

He looked away.

 

Away from the demonic glare, the thunder thrown accusation, and the silent stilling hatred.

 

Forced his attention onto the problem at hand.

 

Clark.

 

He needed to say what he'd said on the plane to Clark. He needed to... he should have said it in the apartment. Ended everything when Clark gave him the chance. It was that damned smile. Clark had spoken to him, had looked at him, like he used to. Nothing between them but air.

 

God, but he had missed that. Missed the ease, the confidence, the simple honest companionship. He'd missed everything being  _right_ between them; and for the first time since the other world everything had finally felt right when... when Clark looked at him and smiled like... like he loved him. Like that love was the most natural thing in the world.

 

He needed to end this. But how could he just... just pretend he didn't...

 

He rubbed his face in his hands.

 

Fuck.

 

Traffic was heavy and the cloud covered sun was already sinking by the time he got back to the manor. He descended into the cave and watched Dick and Damian spar until Alfred delivered dinner with a few remarks coloured with his usual carefully honed sarcasm.

 

He ate. Dressed. Left.

 

The storm had swooped forward and swallowed the city in thick sheets of thundering rain. Gutters spewed water, drains overflowed, and below only the desperate stayed outdoors. He moved between his usual look out points, put down a small time drug dealer, and watched the droplets bead and drop off his cape as he listened to the idle reports filtering across the police scanners.

 

He would normally return to the cave early on such a quiet night. He didn't. Stayed in the storm's furious onslaught, watched the graceless forks of lightening dip down to lick at his city's skyline, and tried to forget everything else.

 

Everything.

 

The bat. The brand. The man that would, even now, be waiting for him. Waiting for him despite... despite everything.

 

He couldn't ignore him any longer.

 

His body was numb and stiff when he finally slid down his line and climbed back into the batmobile. Drove it manually through the deserted streets, around the forest pass, and accelerated into the cave.

 

Parked.

 

The reinforced hood of the car slid back.

 

Clark floated out of the dark and wordlessly offered him his hand.

 

He hesitated.

 

"You want me to leave," Clark said softly. "Don't you." It wasn't a question.

 

The hand was still there. Held out before him like a peace offering.

 

Bruce took it. Pulled himself up and stepped out of the car. "This isn't about what I want."

 

"What do you want?"

 

He hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected the soft sad voice, the warm hand wrapped around his, or the unreserved understanding in his eyes.

 

"I usually patrol late," he told him. "If this is about..."

 

"I know."

 

"Then why..." a cold, heavy, weight wrapped around his heart. "You heard what I said on the plane."

 

Clark nodded.

 

"You were spying on me."

 

Nervously. "I was nearby."

 

Bruce pulled his hand out of Clark's. "I was over the city," he said. Voice low. Unreadable. "You never fly over Gotham. You loop north to avoid it."

 

He looked away. "How do you know that?"

 

He didn't answer.

 

"Spying on me, Bruce?"

 

Waited.

 

Clark sucked in a deep, careful, breath of air before he spoke. "I won't ever stop being your friend unless you ask me to," he said. "And you're not... not broken." He looked up. Met his gaze. "You're perfect."

 

Those words stopped him. Held him.

 

"Clark..."

 

"If you can't look at me and not see him, I understand." He continued quickly. "I know what he did to you was beyond... and there is nothing I can do to fix that. I won't ask you to look at me and pretend it's okay if it's not. And if you want me to leave then I will."

 

"This isn't about what I want," he said again. Felt something inside him unfold with the words. "God Clark... I... I'm so tired..." Felt the walls he'd constructed around him begin to crack and crumble. "I'm tired of lying, of pushing, of... and you make it so hard... you... this isn't about what I want." Felt the mask he'd made fall aside.

 

Clark looked at him in mournful misunderstanding. "What is this about then?"

 

"You, Clark."

 

"Bruce..."

 

"You've always been good and just and... and  _right_ , Clark." He heard himself say. Heard the raw truth finally begin to uncoil. To spill out of him. "And I'm not. I..."

 

"You're per-"

 

"Don't." He held up a hand. "Please just... don't." Took a deep, shuddering, breath. "I was meant to... This isn't how... nothing with you ever goes according to plan does it."

 

A flicker of a smile. "I could say the same thing about you."

 

Bruce sighed and shook his head. "Clark I... I didn't... for the belt I..."

 

"That wasn't you."

 

"I'm the one that asked for it," he confessed. "I'm the one that... he'd already said he wouldn't go to Gotham and..." He closed his eyes. "You were so close. If I'd just kept fighting a few more hours I could... I could have... this thing on my face wouldn't mean anything." A wretched smile snaked across his lips. "He called me a whore the first time but it didn't really... it hurt but it didn't really  _really_  mean anything until... until after..."

 

Clark opened his mouth to speak. He held up a hand. Stopped him.

 

"It's me, Clark. I'm not whole. I'm not good. I'm not  _right_  like you are. That's why I've been trying so hard to push you away. That's why this... this relationship is a bad idea."

 

"That not..."

 

"You don't deserve this... mess my life is. You don't deserve trying to love me around everything..." He hadn't meant to say these things. He hadn't meant to expose himself like this. He hadn't meant...

 

"But I do love you Bruce. I love you so much."

 

An uncertain pause. He licked his lips. "And what about twenty years from now when I still wake up and attack you because I think you're him?" He asked. "What about tomorrow when I realise one little habit that the two of you share? What about when you take me to the fortress to show me the sunset and I tell you he did the exact same thing? Will you still love me then?"

 

Without hesitation. "Yes."

 

"What about the day I'm lying on my death bed and instead of holding your hand and telling you we had a good life together I try to bargain for my belt?" He countered quickly. "Or just a morning where I can't look at you... or can't stop looking at you in all the wrong ways?" A breathless pause. "What about after a lifetime of this? Because I'm not... I'm not going to get better, Clark. This is it. You can't... you can't save me from this one and I know every day you'll try and I'll... I'll hurt you." He tried to put as much conviction, as much dedication, as much certainty, into his voice as he could muster. "This isn't about what I want," he said. "This is about what's right."

 

It sounded stale to his own ears; like an old lie told often enough to flow into well worn ruts.

 

In a small voice. "What about last night? Wasn't that right?"

 

"Clark..."

 

"How can you..." Clark started suddenly. "How can you look at what happened and think that  _you're_  the one that is less because of it? How did you possibly come to that conclusion?  _He_ forced  _you_ , Bruce. No bloody belt, no bargain, nothing changes that. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't you." A hand through hair. "I thought you knew that."

 

A moment of shared silence.

 

"And now you're saying what you want doesn't matter," Clark continued. "How can you believe that? We're talking about a relationship, Bruce. What you want is... it's..."

 

"I want you," Bruce said. "I want this." The statement surprised even him. "I do, Clark, I'm just... what if... what if I can never... we can never..." he leant against the car. "Be... okay?"

 

Clark looked up at him. "We cry and move on."

 

He blinked.

 

"I'm not asking for a lifetime, Bruce. Not yet. I'm just asking for a chance." He took a careful step closer. "I'll do anything for you and that means if we ever come to a point where you can't go on I'll let you go. That's how relationships work." A sad look. "If we're at that point, if that moment is now, just tell me and I'll leave."

 

"No." Bruce said quickly. "Don't."

 

They stood for a time in silence.

 

"Can I kiss you?"

 

Bruce looked at him. "You don't need to..."

 

In a blur Clark's lips were against his. A warm mouth trailed slowly, softly, along his sodden lips; tongued and tasted the rain that still lingered on his skin; swept him forward and stole his breath in a long, deep, connection. It shouldn't... by all rights it shouldn't feel this comfortable trapped between the unyielding shape of Clark and the stylized edge of the batmobile. But it did... it was... and...

 

Clark drew back. He leant forward to maintain the contact as long as possible. Growled as their lips finally separated and Clark's lips curled towards the same, stilling, smile he had worn that morning.

 

"How could anyone hurt you?"

 

Fingers reached up to carefully slide under the corners of his mask and lift the cowl off his face, to glide through his tangled mess of hair, and run like water back down the sides of his face to trace the line of his jaw.

 

Without the lenses in the cowl the cave was a dark pool broken only by the trickle of light escaping from the idle monitor station across from where they stood. It wasn't much but it was just enough to see the windswept curls of thick black hair, the edge of a glittering blue eye, and the shadows lurking off the edge of chiselled cheekbones.

 

When Clark moved back towards him Bruce reached up, wrapped his arms around the man's shoulders, and landed a series of small kisses across his face until he found his lips. Commandeered them, opened them, and swept his tongue into...

 

Stiffened. Choked. Recovered.

 

Clark tried to pull back. He tightened his hold. Continued the kiss. Deepened it. Moved with it. Tasted... Broke it with a gasp.

 

"Are you...?"

 

"I'm fine," he growled.

 

Hooked his fingers in the front of Clark's costume and fell back against the hood of the car. Clark's hands landed either side of him, body above him, face inches from his.

 

"B-Bruce... we don't..."

 

He wrapped his legs around his hips and pressed a hungry, breathless, kiss into his lips. His jaw. His neck.

 

"We don't have to do this if you don't... ah..."

 

He paused. Nipped experimentally at the spot.

 

"Ah... Bruce... I don't need... seconds ago you were... ah..."

 

Enveloped the skin with his mouth and sucked it between his teeth. Chewed slowly, sensually, on the muscle join.

 

"Ah... fuck..." a tortured whine, "God... Bruce..."

 

Clark sunk onto his elbows, crushed their chests together, and pushed Bruce against the bonnet.

 

He didn't relent. Thrust one leg between Clark's and began grinding against him. Didn't stop until Clark began muttering a string of non sentences into his ear, didn't remove his mouth until those words became interlaced with Kryptonian, didn't give him a moment respite until he felt the man begin to move with him.

 

He drew back and licked the unmarked skin.

 

"Interesting."

 

Breathlessly. "What?"

 

"Kryptonite isn't your only weakness," he muttered. "That wasn't even hard to find. If Darkseid or Luthor..."

 

"Okay," he interrupted him, "those are two examples of  _precisely_  who I  _don't_  want to be thinking about right now."

 

He descended to press an open, hungry, kiss onto his lips. Bruce stiffened, swallowed, and relaxed into the contact as Clark resumed his grind into Bruce's hip. Began sliding a hand across the rain drenched exterior of his armour. From shoulder, across his chest, down to his hips, and back. The touch was seeking, probing, and carefully evasive. Ran along the edge of his muscle, down the path of hidden scars, and followed the curve of his flesh over his waist and down across his thighs.

 

He lingered there. Slid the tips of his fingers along the fallow seams of his costume, down to his knee, and back up to trace the shape of his lower abdominals through the stiff, hybrid, material.

 

Bruce snarled, tried to arrange that hand into a more useful position, and glared up at Clark as he felt the man's lips curve under his own.

 

Clark grabbed his hip, pushed him out from under him, and up against the windshield. Settled himself between his legs and began nipping and nuzzling through his costume.

 

"Clark..."

 

Lips slid against the material on his inner thigh, a gush of inhumanly hot air against his groin, and a dull noise as teeth closed around the buckle of his belt.

 

Even through the darkness Bruce could see the flash of those alien blue eyes trained on him as he gently, deftly, undid the belt with his tongue and pulled it out from under him. Arched up to offer it clasped between his teeth. A simple gesture of understanding.

 

"That'll shock you in a few seconds," Bruce muttered. Took the piece of equipment and tossed it aside. It clattered nosily in the darkness.

 

Clark smiled, wrapped his fingers around his hips, and fell upon him. Kissing, licking, biting...

 

He gasped as teeth scraped against the bare skin of his thigh. The man sat up, spat a chunk of his armour, and descended again. Carefully bit through the bullet resilient mesh, clasped the material between his teeth, and peeled it back from his skin. Bruce stared in fascination through the gloom as the man chewed through the armour between his hips and knees, exposed his rapidly hardening member, and nipped at the newly naked skin.

 

Bruce felt a sting of heat, of want, at every fleeting touch. At every flicker of tongue, every brush of breath, and every soft scrape of teeth. Bucked against the firm hold of Clark's hands.

 

Clark stroked his thumb reassuringly along his hip and turned to slide his tongue between his balls and up the underside of his cock. Traced the swelling veins with the very tip of his tongue before taking the length into the warm cavern of his mouth.

 

Bruce's eyelids fluttered, threatened to close, but he kept them open. Kept his eyes fixed on the shadowy shape of Clark as be began to slide up and down his cock, tried to penetrate the darkness to see the colour of the man's cheeks, the saliva and pre-come he knew already dripped from his lips, and the flash of sparkling alien blue as he gauged his reaction.

 

He sucked in air through gritted teeth, tangled his hand in Clark's hair, and urged him on; faster, harder. Growled his appreciation when the man responded.

 

He knew he wouldn't last. Not when Clark engulfed him so deeply he felt the head of his cock assault the back of the man's throat. Not when those indestructible lips closed hot, tight, and wet, around his shaft. Not when his own grunts and moans were echoed by the man as he moved slightly too fast up and down his length. He knew he wouldn't...

 

He came. Spilt his load into the greedy, welcoming, mouth of the man and it was messy, needy, and nothing... nothing like the strangled orgasms the other world's Superman had forced from him. Unchastened. Unhindered. Raw. A long low note drawn to a frayed, frantic, climax.

 

Clark sucked him till he finished, swallowed, and climbed up him to lock their lips together. The warm, thick, taste of his own ejaculate mixed with the rich aroma that was... Clark. It was Clark... as his bottom lip was seized and sucked hungrily between the other man's teeth.

 

He returned the kiss, opened his mouth, and pressed his tongue against... Sharp. Certain. Alien.

 

He gagged.

 

Clark withdrew.

 

"No," Bruce rasped. "I'm fine I..."

 

"That's not the first time, Bruce. I'm doing something wrong when I kiss you. What is it?"

 

"It's nothing." He said quickly. "I'll get used to it." He arched forward and reclaimed those lips, parted them with a touch of tongue, and began to weave patterns...

 

Clark pulled back again. "You're not breathing, Bruce. What's wrong?"

 

"God damn it, Clark, it's not important!"

 

"Then tell me."

 

He glared up at him. "Look, it's not something you can fix, alright." He snapped. "There is, however, something else I think you can help me with right now." He kicked his legs free, wrapped them around Clark's hips, and pressed himself against the man's hardening package.

 

"Bruce I... I just want to understand..."

 

There was a pleading note in his voice Bruce couldn't ignore. It was so estranged from the bold tone of America's favourite superhero, so different from the snarl of the other world's Superman, and so unlike the usual friendly roll of words Clark used to share with him. There was something intimate, something beautiful, something... something  _his_  in that tone. Something he couldn't, could never, ignore.

 

"Fine," he hissed. "It's... you taste like him... and smell... it's not important. I didn't notice it last night with the wine..."

 

Clark vanished.

 

Bruce stared in shock at the empty space before him. Gone. Gone in an instant because... Felt his stomach twist with gut churning anger as he realised what he'd said, what he'd done, what he'd...

 

Clark reappeared knelling between his knees, wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him effortlessly into his lap. Their lips collided and he was assaulted with the sharp pungent taste of mint and the noxious, unmistakable, scent of sulphur. He coughed, spluttered...

 

"Clark! What...?"

 

"I told you I'd do anything for you," he whispered.

 

"You smell like you ate a truck load of toothpaste and went swimming in Yellowstone," Bruce accused.

 

A weighted silence.

 

"That's it. Shower. Now."

 

A nervous shifting. "Like... you want me to go and have a shower or...?"

 

Bruce swore, pushed off his lap, and slid off the hood of the car. Frowned down at the indecent state of his suit and began shedding pieces as he strode through the cave towards the showers. As he passed the sensors the lights blazed into life illuminating the yawning cavern before him and the Kryptonian trailing behind.

 

He turned and studied Clark; took note of the hungry, unsatisfied, way he chewed his bottom lip; saw the raw appreciation as Bruce carelessly discarded the pieces of his ruined suit; and observed, overlaying it all, the nervous string of tentative hope blazing through brilliant blue eyes.

 

Clark was waiting for him. Waiting to be invited to strip naked and follow him into the batcave's adjacent showers, waiting in dry mouthed anticipation to be allowed to touch him again; to hold him, waiting and hoping that they weren't finished as he drifted under the glowering mantle of the bat after him.

 

And for the first time since Superman marked his face, he felt powerful. Strong.

 

Not the lie of strength he could construct around Selina's tongue touched fantasises, not the small trickle of power wrangled from taking down petty criminals, and not the mask he wore as he moved among the sterile halls of the Watchtower or through the glittering parties of the prestigious Wayne Foundation. The power, the control, he felt now was true. Because at a word, or a gesture, he could rip aside the hope on the other man's face or fulfil it.

 

Because with no more than a teasing half grin as he pushed open the shower door, and a summoning jerk of his head; he brought that morning's beautiful, undiminishable, smile in full, unmasked, perfection.

 

They stumbled into the shower in a tangle of limbs, a messy collection of kisses, and a series of slurred and unfinished sentences.

 

"I love..."

 

"Come here."

 

"You're so..."

 

"Shut up."

 

"...perfect."

 

"You too."

 

"I wish..."

 

"Don't worry..."

 

"Are you sure?"

 

"Fuck yes..."

 

Bruce flicked the shower on and turned into the wall as Clark trailed tooth touched kisses along the side of his neck, sent chilled gusts of icy breath snaking across marked skin, and traced the lines of scars along his back. As the scalding water pounded down around him, he pressed his forehead against the cool tiles, and tried to regulate his breathing as Clark massaged him open; as he eased his knuckle passed the pucker of muscle, pressed against his prostate, and worked a second and third finger in beside the first. He groaned, arched, and turned to look over his shoulder through heavy lidded eyes as Clark finally entered him; filled him, fused with him, and fucked him. Reached around to attach a vibrating hand to his shaft.

 

"Bruce." A heavy, broken, whisper.

 

"Clark." A deep throated purr.

 

In that moment they were together. Moving together. Breathing together. Crying out together. Coming together.

 

It was enough.

 

Clark was enough.

 

Enough to banish the bat, the belt, and the brand.

 

Because none of it mattered. Because, as he turned and claimed his mouth, there was no history between them. There was no other world. No Superman. No months of struggling, of hurting, of hiding...

 

There was only this.

 

And it was enough.


	8. Chapter 8

"Thank you, Superman," the woman said, clutching his hand, "I don't know what... what he would have done without you. When the doctors told me you had phoned I..."

 

"It's okay," he said with a stiff smile. "I just wanted to help." A small pause. "I didn't even know if it would work," he admitted.

 

"I know, I know," she muttered. "But you must know I... it means so much. I don't know how I can ever repay you." A tear stained smile. "You've saved her again, Superman."

 

"I wasn't the one that saved her the first time," he reminded the woman still clinging to his hand.

 

They stood in the sterilised white hall of Gotham General and looked through the window into the hospital room beyond. The girl within sat on the edge of the bed and toyed with a stuffed teddy bear covered in an array of signatures. Wrapped around her shoulders was the thick, blood stained, memory cloth cape Bruce had worn the night he found her. Saved her.

 

Wide eyes noticed them watching and she nervously ducked out of sight behind the bed. Pulled the bulk of the cape down after her.

 

"She's shy."

 

"I'm just amazed you managed to keep the press at bay," Clark commented.

 

"She's a minor. Legally no names need be named and we decided to keep it that way," the mother said softly, releasing his hand, and wiping away her tears on her sleeve. "A nurse tried to call the police to get the cape taken off her as evidence but, well, the Commissioner himself derailed that pretty fast and I..." she looked away. "I didn't think The Batman was... I mean... what the media says..."

 

"He's happy to help."

 

"R-right."

 

The girl peeked around the edge of the bed, saw them, and poked her tongue out before ducking back out of sight. Through the steel frame and plastic coated mattress he could see her grinning; gleefully proud of her deception.

 

God she was so young...

 

"I should go," Clark muttered.

 

"Will you come back?"

 

He looked at the hiding girl enveloped in the massive black cape. The girl that had trapped Bruce under the weight of her wounds that night on patrol, the girl that called him back by name, the girl that convinced him to go back, to stand by, Bruce.

 

So young... so strong...

 

"Yes," he answered.

 

Waved at her as she leant around the bed, caught him watching, and scuttled out of sight with a giggle leaving the spiked hem of the cape behind her.

 

"Thank you."

 

He nodded, plastered another smile onto his face, and strode through the bleached white halls back towards the looming reception. Dr. Quintum stopped him and landed a bound plastic folder in his hands before launching into a pre-prepared speech about the general poor equipment and facilities of the hospital compared to his lab. Clark dutifully thanked him, tucked the folder under his arm, and flew through the revolving door into Gotham under the morning sunlight.

 

It was a beautiful city.

 

Despite himself he was starting to see it; the dark, haunting, splendour in the looming walls, the almost heroic rise of the buildings from its shadowy core and the secret stories etched onto the spray painted streets overlooked by snarling, rain worn, gargoyles. Gotham. It wasn't Metropolis. It wasn't safe, it wasn't bright, it wasn't clean, and it wasn't honest, or simple. It was something else. Something deep. Dark. Dangerous.

 

Like Bruce.

 

He flew high over the city that had given birth to The Batman, wove between the blimps, and travelled with the wind towards the Palisades. Piebald green forest crowned by a collection of mansions and miniature palaces overlooking the rough, rolling, waters of the sea beyond drop away cliffs. Wayne manor stood secretively away from the bulk of the homes in the middle of a stark lawn and at the end of a sweeping driveway.

 

He swallowed a nervous pang as Bruce's heartbeat became more defined at his approach.

 

They'd fallen asleep together last night. Fallen asleep in each others arms after, easily, the best sex Clark had ever had. He'd always admired the man but nothing had prepared him for seeing Bruce like that. For feeling him. For tasting him. Rich. Dark. Intoxicating. He'd almost held too tight, pushed too hard, lost control... But he hadn't. He hadn't because Bruce had been touching him with such want, kissing him with such love, and looking at him with such... such trust.

 

He'd trusted him.

 

Loved him.

 

Even after everything.

 

But what if today would be a repeat of the day before? A night of confessed love only to be followed by cold, distant, morning? What if Bruce woke up and wanted to leave? Wanted him to leave? What if...

 

He dragged his mind away from the thrall of questions that sought to undermine him and dropped slolwy from the sky to push open the window and sail into the room beyond.

 

Bruce lay sprawled naked across the bed, sheet kicked aside, and pillow discarded on the floor. Clark let his eyes track along the mismatched scars, over the defined contours of his shoulders, and up the bruises that spotted his neck to rest on the crude brand Superman had left on his cheek. It was aging. Paling. Sinking into his flesh. Tugging at his skin.

 

"Bruce?"

 

A low growl.

 

"It's morning," he said carefully.

 

"Bats are nocturnal."

 

"I..."

 

A ripple of muscle, an arm thrown wide, and a pale blue eye blinked open. "What happened?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"Why are you in your suit?"

 

"I... I went to see a friend."

 

Propped up on his elbow. "Who?"

 

"It's..." he looked down at the folder in his hand.

 

"A long story?" Bruce guessed.

 

"Yeah."

 

"Tell me later." Slumped back onto the mattress.

 

Clark stood, awkward and unsure, for a moment before carefully closing the window and making his way towards the door.

 

Low. Dangerous. "Where are you going?"

 

"I..." he muttered, "I thought..."

 

"Come here."

 

It wasn't a request.

 

Clark wouldn't have denied him even if it was.

 

Dropped the folder on a chair, swung his cape off his shoulders, and shed his suit in little over a second. Sped onto the bed, fell beside Bruce, and reached towards the man.

 

A forearm slammed against his chest, stopped him, and pushed him firmly back into the mattress. Stayed on him. Held him.

 

It wasn't cuddling. It was something primeval, something animalistic, something... else.

 

Bruce's elbow rested in the centre of his chest, his hand splashed against his neck, and his fingers against the pulse point under his jaw. His thumb drew lazy, firm, circles across his jugular.

 

Possessive. Angry. Dominating.

 

Clark tried not to think about it. Tried to ignore it. But he couldn't help from wondering if this would be how Bruce would have held him if things had been different. If they'd never gone to the other world. If Superman had never touched him, never hurt him, never branded him. If none of that had happened would Bruce have touched him like this? Held him like this? Or would it have been kinder? More careless?

 

It didn't matter.

 

It didn't matter because Bruce was beside him now and they were okay. After everything they'd been through, after everything he'd put Bruce through how could he possibly ask for more? When he was lying beside the most beautiful, perfect... when he'd said yes... said yes and kissed him... said yes and loved him back despite everything.

 

How could anything matter beyond that?

 

He reached up and rested his hand over Bruce's. Gently interlaced their fingers and brought the entwined fist up to his mouth and kissed the other man's knuckles. Found a tiny scar running the length of Bruce's middle finger. Traced it with the tip of his tongue.

 

"Missed a baterang," Bruce grunted.

 

He pulled the finger into his mouth and sucked it slowly along its length.

 

"I'm sleeping Clark."

 

Dragged the hand closer and began planting kisses on the inside of his wrist, trailing them down his forearm, and pressing them against his bicep. Found another scar. Buckled and curved.

 

"Dog," Bruce muttered.

 

He edged closer to the man and continued kissing over his shoulder and up the side of his neck. Showed special attention to the underside of his jaw before darting over his chin to steal his lips in a long, tender, kiss.

 

Bruce flinched briefly before thrusting himself into the contact, before claiming Clark in an indomitable press of lip on lip, and sweeping him away in a moment of shared desire. A moment of lust and love. A moment of colour in an existence that had been bleached since their visit to the other world. A moment all theirs.

 

Bruce broke the contact to suck in a deep, steadying, breath of air while Clark started scattering kisses across his chin, cheeks, and jaw.

 

"Alright?" He asked against his skin.

 

"Fine," Bruce hissed.

 

Clark's lips brushed against the cleft of Bruce's chin, the stubble spotted skin, and against the rough edge of the sc... He stopped. Stiffened.

 

He'd kissed the brand. Open mouthed he'd felt the pucker of scar tissue curved in the crude semblance of his family's house. Superman's mark.

 

"Another dog," Bruce said without hesitation.

 

"Dog?" He couldn't help but mutter in amazement.

 

How could he be so dismissive? So nonchalant?

 

"A mad one," Bruce assured him.

 

He looked nervously from the scar back to the man and tried to pick apart his mask; the look in his eye, the set of his features, and the unreadable tone of his voice. He couldn't. He'd never been able to read him. He'd never been able to read this man. To read Bruce.

 

But he knew he shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have reminded him. He should have been more careful, more considerate.

 

Bruce leant towards him, slid his free hand through his hair, and pressed their lips together in a crushing kiss. A kiss that spoke of understanding, of forgiveness, of them. Just them. Together. And nothing else mattered.

 

Clark inhaled the dark, filling, flavour of the man, and fell back as Bruce rolled on top of him. Wrapped around him. Dived into him.

 

He welcomed the advance of tongue with a touch of his own, squeezed the hand still clasped within his, and hooked his spare fingers around Bruce's hip; tug him forward encouragingly. Because he couldn't imagine anything more simply, honestly, beautiful than a chance at a lifetime of this. Of open mouthed kisses. Of intense steel eyes. Of Bruce, just Bruce, looking at him the way he had looked at him in the shower last night. The way, as their lips parted, he was looking at him now.

 

Looking at him, heavy lidded, flushed, and wet lipped but still... still with all the authority, the majesty, of a king.

 

"I love you," Clark heard himself say.

 

"I know."

 

They were kissing again. Bruce's thighs were around him, his naked body pressed into him, and his cock rubbing, hard and hot, against his stomach.

 

Tongue, teeth, and lip.

 

Clark closed his eyes and groaned into the other man's mouth as he felt his own hardened length scrape against the firm buckle of Bruce's scar touched body. A knot of arousal tangled inside him. Tightened with every grate of hip on hip as Bruce rocked against him. Began to fray as he detached himself from his lips and began seeking the spot he'd discovered last night on his neck; as he felt the hand within his own pull free, glide up the inside of his thigh, and wrap around the base of his shaft.

 

He sucked in a ragged breath, tasted the sharp scent of sex and sweat already staining the air, and the mind lulling aroma that was Bruce; so dark, so deep, it threatened to drown him; the rich, enthralling, allure that had to be illicitly addictive. Dangerous, demanding, and spiced with the taste of the other man's own hungry, desperate, arousal.

 

Bruce removed his hand from his hair, spread him, and entered him.

 

Clark knew he wouldn't last. Not when he was being attacked on three different fronts; a mouth at his neck, a hand around his base, and Bruce inside him. Not when that mouth found  _that_ spot at the edge of his shoulder. Not when that hand began to jack him faster, harder, and rub a thumb teasingly across his head. Not when the angle of those thrusts changed to... to... fuck...

 

The bedposts thudded against the wall and beneath them the mattress rocked in time. He was muttering without control, without restraint, into the man's hair. Telling him in a slurred mess of languages how important he was, how perfect, and how he would never, could never, hurt him. Wrapped his arms around him and promised him he would never become a monster, would never lock him away, would never mark him. He promised him everything in a breathless moan. A moan that built to a starved, frantic, cry as he climaxed into the other man's hand.

 

Bruce wasn't far behind. He sunk his teeth into his neck, slammed his fists into the mattress either side of them, and drove into him with a newfound urgency.

 

Clark watched in fascination as the muscles up his body shivered, his nerve endings fired in an explosion of tiny light, and his voice rumbled in pure, undisguised, pleasure as he emptied himself into Clark. Watched, enthralled, as his face slackened in an unmasked show of release. Of satisfaction.

 

He felt the heat of the other man's ejaculate spill from him as Bruce withdrew.

 

"Fuck, you're tight," Bruce panted.

 

Clark smiled. Kissed him.

 

A flicker of a shudder.

 

He pulled back.

 

"Sorry."

 

"No," Clark said, "it's okay. We don't have to. It's fine."

 

"I'll get over it," he muttered.

 

"It's okay."

 

He settled for embracing him instead. Let him slump boneless on top of him and bury his face in his hair as Bruce drifted slowly back towards sleep.

 

Clark took note that now they were indeed cuddling and allowed a small, secret, smile to spill slowly across his lips.

 

It lasted a few minutes before Bruce grunted and sat up, glaring down almost accusingly at the drying semen splashed and smeared across them. The request was unspoken. Silent. But Clark obeyed.

 

He gathered Bruce into his arms and sped into the ensuite attached to the looming bedroom. Unlike most of the manor the room was bright and modern equipt with a shower positioned over a sunken bath almost the size of the bed. He flew over the edge and landed in the middle of the glittering white tank.

 

"How much money do you have?"

 

"Now? On paper just over seven billion US dollars."

 

"On paper?

 

He gave him a look.

 

"Right," Clark muttered. "What about the rest?" He turned on the water with a healthy dose of heat.

 

Bruce turned gratefully into the stream. "Varies trust funds, bank accounts, stock shares, and property holdings under a number of different aliases," he said vaguely. Closed his eyes and put his head into the torrent of water.

 

"And one of those aliases put the Watchtower up?"

 

"No," Bruce said with a frown. "Wayne Enterprises launched the satellite a few years before it became the Watchtower. As far as the company is concerned, however, there was a malfunction that caused it to drop in its orbit and it burned up on re entry. We lost eight hundred million. Since then, of course, the satellite has undergone enough changes to be virtually unrecognizable from the one built by the SpaceTech division."

 

"You faked the death of and stole an eight hundred million dollar satellite from your own company?"

 

"Do you want me to apologise and give it back?"

 

"...no?"

 

"Good." He turned to face him, water pouring unchecked over his shoulders, and reached up to slide a hand along the side of Clark's face. "I figure it had my name on it anyway."

 

It was easy.

 

An easy, open, painless conversation like... like they hadn't had in a long time.

 

A conversation that resounded on their years of friendship, not the months of distrust. A conversation that spoke of an effortless companionship forged over the years, not the fleeting fragile flame he'd been fanning these last months. A conservation free of guilt and unstable assurances.

 

It was just them.

 

Just him.

 

Just Bruce.

 

And it was easy.

 

Right.

 

Good.

 

The hand Bruce had placed on his face slid down his body, traced the lines on his chest, and pushed him firmly down onto the edge of the bath. He sat and gazed at him almost dreamily as Bruce washed the evidence of their sexual encounter off before sinking to his knees in front of him. Icy blue eyes met his. Stunned him. Captured him.

 

Challenged him.

 

Dared him to react as Bruce slowly, firmly, curled his fingers around the base of his penis and drew the rest into his mouth.

 

It was like one of his fighting styles; precise, preconceived, andpowerful. Something he'd discovered, perfected, and made his own.

 

He was rough. Unhindered by the fear of hurting him as he slid up and down his shaft with a hungry scrape of teeth, massaged his balls in the clench of his fist, and fluidly took him deep into the back of his throat. Sucked until Clark thought he was about to explode into him, until he was gasping for air, until his whole body began to tense in anticipation.

 

Bruce stopped, wiped his bottom lip on the heel of his palm, and rocked back to duck his head under the torrent of water.

 

"Br... Bruce?" He staggered through the word. "What's..." a laboured breath, "wrong?"

 

Bruce didn't answer him. Reached forward and slowly pulled himself up his body; climbed him, straddled him, and positioned himself above him.

 

Clark swallowed.

 

Gazed up at him in wonder.

 

Bruce sat on his lap; water running in glittering rivers over the buckle of worn muscle, and spilling along his chiselled scars. Clark let his eyes linger on those marks. Each told of a battle won or lost and stole the simple symmetry of his shape to reveal the flawed perfection of Bruce's body. Some were small and almost lost to the weather and wear of his skin. Others defaced the muscle, twisted the flesh, and glared out at him in brutal honesty; speaking to their origins by their shape and stance on his skin.

 

Over shadowing the scars, like a thin layer of paint over wooden grain, sat a series of bruises. Some were him. The small red bite marks left over from the night before. Most were dark, angry, and spoke of the battle in Bialya. A few were older, faded, but savagely reminiscent of his time patrolling the streets.

 

It was all framing. The bruises. The scars.

 

They framed, shaded, and embellished the man beneath.

 

Bruce.

 

He was a living anatomy reference, an art major's master class in shape and form, and the most beautiful thing Clark had ever seen.

 

Bruce lowered himself onto Clark, hissed through his teeth as he was opened, and muttered a curse as he took his entire length inside him. Sat for a time, brow puckered, mouth open, and air heaving in and out of him in slow, measured, breaths. Clark began tasting the water rolling off his shoulders. Teasing the skin between his teeth. Sighing with pleasure at the filling flavour of the man spread across his palate.

 

Bruce began to ride him.

 

Slowly at first. Accompanied by a few ragged growls.

 

Clark groaned, planted a scattering of kisses along the side of his face, and bucked his hips forward every time Bruce descended. Met him in a shared sting of pleasure.

 

Soon they were crying out, whining, and struggling to find a better position as they made love among the soap, water, and steam. Hands and feet slipped on wet tile as Bruce tried to prop himself up for a better angle, curses smudged to frantic gasps as they knocked the bottles of shampoo and body wash down with a loud clatter, and lips collided in a messy kiss as they slid against the wall.

 

He felt himself begin to fall, wrapped his arms around Bruce, and flew out of the shower to pin him against the ceiling. The man pulled apart their lips to look down through the swirling steam at the room below. His hands locked around Clark in a firmer hold as he quickly used the extra space to move his legs higher and adjust himself so each thrust of Clark's hips knocked a desperate, starved, cry from his throat.

 

Clark thrust into him, felt a familiar tightness spread from his groin up to his throat, felt himself began to spill. Clenched his teeth and fought to stay in control as he pushed Bruce into the building hard enough to shake the light fittings. Fought to carry the man to his end as he gasped and groaned into his ear. As he slowly fell to pieces in his arms.

 

"There Clark..." he whispered. "Right... there."

 

He adjusted slightly and rolled his hips to grind into him and like the breaking of a dam Bruce came. His whole body shuddered, his voice poured out of him in an unguarded crescendo, and his face flickered through a series of emotions to finally rest on slack, trembling, release.

 

That look. Serene, satisfied, and so... so beautiful... it unravelled Clark. Undid him. Undermined the semblance of control he had maintained with Bruce up until now.

 

He crushed his lips against him in a starved kiss, hammered into him with the desperation of the dying, and explored every inch of him with his hands moving at super speed across his skin.

 

And god he...

 

Perfect...

 

So...

 

He came. Filled him with an obscene amount of semen; felt it encompass his cock, run down his shaft, and drip onto his thighs. He stroked his hands up Bruce's sides, shifted against him, and...

 

Bruce was heaving. Choking. Gagging.

 

He pulled his lips away and Bruce gasped like a drowning man resurfacing.

 

"Oh, god, Bruce I'm..." Clark began.

 

"I'm sorry," Bruce finished. "I'll get over it. I..." he sucked in a ragged breath of air, spat, and swore. "It's only sometimes it just... hits me." Licked lips. "Smell is the strongest stimulant of memory."

 

"I didn't mean..." Clark stammered. "I wouldn't..."

 

"You're allowed to... ah... enjoy it," he replied.

 

"I know but I didn't mean... I'm sorry I..."

 

Bruce's eyes locked onto his. Hard. Angry. "You're allowed to lose control, Clark." He growled. "I'm here with you so you can with me. You're meant to enjoy it."

 

"But..."

 

Eyes flashed. "Don't you dare regret this," he snarled. "Don't you fucking dare."

 

Clark flinched away from the sharpened edge in his glare, the steel in his voice. "I know I can hurt you..."

 

Bruce kissed him. Opened mouthed. Demanding. Hard enough to force his lips to move with him or risk hurting him. Hard enough to crush their faces together. Hard enough to smother his words.

 

There wasn't a flicker, a single shred, of hesitation in those lips. There wasn't a hint of regret, of withdrawal, of rejection. Only want. Love. Need. A need for him to understand. To accept and understand.

 

The kiss slowed. Deepened.

 

Bruce surrendered his handholds on Clark's shoulders to thread his fingers through his hair and Clark drifted away from the ceiling and enfolded the man within his embrace.

 

"You can hurt me, Clark," Bruce whispered as their lips eased apart. "You can hurt me more than anyone else on this planet. You can hurt me like the other world's Superman hurt his Batman. He left him with nothing but an enemy wearing the face of his friend. He changed. You can change. Change so much you're..." He sighed. "You won't hurt me like that. You won't change. I trust you."

 

Clark muttered a string of comforting words. No sentences. No greater meaning.

 

"But that," Bruce continued, "that is the only way you can hurt me, Clark. You can't... you can't hurt me by letting go like you did. You can't hurt me by showing me how much you want it. You can't... you can't hurt me by kissing me. Not as you are. Not unless you change."

 

"I won't change," he promised feverously. "I won't."

 

"Even if Lois dies?" A pause. "Even if I die?"

 

"I won't," he swore. "I can't... I saw him Bruce I saw... I won't become that. I swear."

 

A heavy, exhausted, sigh. "I trust you."

 

Clark felt a sting of nervousness as he realised this was the time. The time to show him what he'd done. What he could do.

 

"Do you?" He muttered.

 

Without hesitation. "Yes."

 

"Can I... can I tell you where I went this morning?"

 

Half an hour later Bruce sat on the floor, wrapped in a dressing gown with Dr. Quintum's folder in his lap, and a collection of photos spread out across the carpet in front of him.

 

Quiet. Reserved. "I didn't know you could do that."

 

"Neither did I," Clark admitted. "It's not perfect. But it'll fade overtime." Paused. "She'll be able to wear a dress at prom."

 

Bruce slid his fingers along the edge of one of the photos. Eyes fixed on the image captured on the glossy card. On the carved flesh of the girl depicted in the images. On the word there.

 

Whore.

 

"Is it x-ray vision?" He muttered.

 

"In part," he confirmed. "Part heat vision."

 

Bruce flinched.

 

He watched.

 

Watched as Bruce carefully put the before and after pictures beside each other, as he traced his finger over the shape of the word engraved into the girl's back, and as he unconsciously reached up to scrape his thumb along the rough hem of his own withered brand. His own slanderous scar.

 

"You did this for me, didn't you?"

 

He couldn't lie. Not to him. Not now. "Yes."

 

"Why?" Voice low. Unreadable.

 

Clark sucked in a deep breath and sunk down to sit on the floor beside him. "It's..." he resolved himself to the truth. Raw. Unchecked. "When you came to the apartment that night and fell asleep. You rolled over and I couldn't pretend it wasn't there." He said in a rush. "And I remembered the girl and called the hospital. I called Dr. Quintum to make sure it was safe and... it worked." He looked up with a smile. "It worked, Bruce. I took away her scars. I've never done something like that before. It's... it was easy."

 

Bruce didn't say anything.

 

"This isn't because of us. I would have offered this anyway," he tried gently. "This has nothing to do with us." A pregnant pause. "It's just if you want it."

 

He looked down at the photos, at the documents, and at the message they shared. Focused on the first picture. The girl Bruce had saved lay unconscious, her back exposed, and the red scars bare and blatant across her skin. The picture beside it depicted her lying in the same position, the same bed, but her back was clean save a slight smudge of disfigured colour around the faded marks. It wasn't perfect. No scar removal was perfect. But it was better. She would live better. Be better.

 

"It won't work," Bruce muttered. His features were cast in iron. "Even if you make me look like I did, I can't promise I won't... it won't... it won't change anything. You know that. You can fix my face but you can't... you can't fix this, Clark. You can't fix me."

 

"I'm not trying to."

 

"Then why?"

 

There was an edge to the question. A flicker of nervous uncertainty interlaced within his stony composure.

 

"You don't deserve it," Clark muttered looking directly at the scar in question. The low, ugly, brand on the other man's cheek. "You don't deserve to live your life with his mark on you. You didn't do anything wrong."

 

Bruce stared sightlessly forward. His face was fallow and strained. Eyes dark with all that was still untold. With all that he could never share.

 

Clark couldn't leave him there. Couldn't let him slip into himself. Into the darkness, grief, and guilt, he was just learning lurked there. Into the hungry jaws of the bat.

 

He reached out, cupped his face in his hands, and turned him towards him. Spoke to what experience had taught him that look meant. To what he knew was warring behind the other man's eyes.

 

"You're not a whore, Bruce."

 

Silence.

 

"You're not." A small stretched smile. "You're a lot of things but that isn't one of them."

 

A lingering silence.

 

"I know." Bruce muttered at last and leant into his hands. "I know that." The words were old, stale, and dry. Like an unfulfilled promise, worn and wilted, by its retelling. "I know."

 

Clark let that be enough. Pulled him against him. Held him. Planted a soft, slow, kiss against his forehead.

 

"How..." he Bruce whispered. "How long would it take?"

 

"Half an hour."

 

He glanced up at him. "If I did it without morphine?"

 

He looked at him for a moment. Tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the bleak, black, look in his eyes. "Seconds," he answered softly.

 

"Will you do it now?"

 

He should have expected this.

 

"It'll hurt."

 

"I know." He looked down. "I'm scared of heat vision, Clark."

 

"Then wouldn't it be better if we used the drugs?"

 

A hard look. "I can't be scared of heat vision."

 

"But..."

 

"Not if we're going to be together." Lower. "I can't be scared of you, Clark."

 

There was something in his voice. A grounding, a conviction, he hadn't carried before. An assurance that he knew what he was doing. A guarantee that this wasn't a game. An unspoken pledge promising that this wasn't just what he wanted; it was what he needed.

 

"Okay," Clark muttered. "Okay I will."

 

Bruce didn't look away. Didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. "Do it."

 

He did.

 

There. Then.

 

On the floor of Bruce's bedroom, the other man's face in his hands, and the small evidence of his previous success scattered across the carpet around them.

 

He burnt off the old scar tissue in a blaze of red, killed the damaged cells with concentrated x-ray vision, and switched back to heat vision to blur the edges of the scar. Finished with a breath of cold air to wipe away the lingering heat.

 

Bruce heaved in pain, pressed his palm to the side of his face, and froze. Gently slid his fingers down his cheek.

 

"It's not perfect," Clark said.

 

Bruce lurched to his feet and strode into the bathroom. Began checking his cheek from every angle.

 

"I'm sorry I can't--"

 

"I can hardly see it," Bruce interrupted him. "This isn't a scar that will last." A small, stunned, stare. "You did it."

 

He hadn't. He could still see the scar tissue concealed under his flesh, the tracks of destroyed cells, and the dead skin. With a lurch he realised even if it faded beyond Bruce's sight he would always be able to see it. Even if Bruce could look in the mirror and... but that was all that mattered. Bruce was all that mattered.

 

"Why didn't you try to remove the scar earlier?" He asked. "When we first came home?"

 

"It wouldn't have worked. Not like this," he said dismissively.

 

"But why didn't you try?"

 

Bruce paused, dropped his hand from his newly repaired cheek, and turned to look at him still sitting on the floor of the bedroom.

 

"You."

 

Clark blinked. "Me?"

 

"I thought... there is no such thing as no questions." Bruce tried to explain. "If I removed it someone somewhere would be asking why a mysterious man needed a Superman brand removed from his cheek. Why a man matching The Batman's description would have been hurt like that by Superman." He glanced back at his reflection one last time before returning to the room still rubbing his cheek. "That man could have destroyed you, Clark. Destroyed what you stood for. Everything you've fought for, and you... you don't deserve that, Clark. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't need your reputation destroyed just..."

 

"My reputation?" Clark interrupted him. "You think my reputation is more important than this?" He said in horror. "Bruce, how could you even think that?"

 

"You didn't do anything wrong and I d..." he caught himself. Corrected. "I thought I did. I thought I... it doesn't matter."

 

"You're the one that deleted Joker's quotes on the other world's Superman," Clark realised.

 

"Yes."

 

"Why?" He pushed himself to his feet. "To save my reputation?"

 

"No. To save you."

 

Clark stared at him.

 

Bruce sighed and stepped towards him. Claimed his hand in his own as if asking him through the connection to understand.

 

"If Luthor found out there was another world, a world with a potentially controllable Kryptonian, what do you think would happen?" He murmured. "How many villains from our world would be willing to find a way to hop boarders and break him out in hopes of winning a super powered ally? In the hopes of their very own Superman?" A meaningful pause. "And he'd go after you first. He'd take his revenge, attack you on his own terms, and rig it to win. He'd kill you." His voice deepened. "I did it to protect you, Clark."

 

"Bee?"

 

A twisted smile. "We can be thankful Queen Bee possesses neither the intellect nor the integrity to figure that out," he said.

 

"You're amazing."

 

The words fell from his lips like they were predestined. As if they were some divine truth. As if it wasn't something he'd always known.

 

"You're so.... you never gave up on me, did you? Even then, even after everything, even in the middle of all that shit you... God Bruce... despite everything you never... Even when I had..." he stepped forward, wrapped his arms around the man, and pressed his lips against his.

 

The kiss was estranged from any other they'd shared before. It was... happy. Bruce rolled his head to the side, opened his mouth, and moved his lips in a string of warm kisses, each slightly longer than the one before. Clark mirrored his action, welcomed every kiss, and followed each one with a smaller one of his own.

 

They stood, shared in each other, loved each other, and held each other. And it was all he could ever ask for. All he could ever want. All he could ever possibly need. Because Bruce gave him breath and a reason to breathe it. Bruce gave him purpose. Bruce gave him... everything. And he couldn't sum up how impossibly important he was. Not in words.

 

Their lips parted with a soft, mutual, sigh and Bruce slid his clean cheek against Clark's.

 

"You were never the problem, Clark. You were the hero. You were the one who saved me. You were... I loved you. I always... fuck... I always loved you."

 

He smiled. Leant forward to share in another, open, kiss.

 

"Thank you," Bruce whispered against his lips. "Thank you for not leaving me behind. Thank you for fighting for me. Thank you for... I don't know if I'll ever be... the same, Clark. I don't but... thank you for making me strong again."

 

After the months of uncertainty it finally felt as if he walked on solid ground. After all this time groping forward in the dark he felt as if the sun were finally starting to rise. After... after everything... despite everything... they were together. They were whole.

 

And nothing else mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Congrats making it all the way to the end. It is - by all rights - a bloody novel.
> 
> Any feedback is beyond awesome as I am still fairly new to this gig and I would love to hear from you. Really. You guys are why I write this stuff.
> 
> If you liked this then I would recommend popping over to the Superman/Batman archive [here](http://worldsfinest.comicslash.com/archive/index.php) as it is where this baby was born and it has a whole lot more of really impressive works on this pairing.
> 
> Never forget you are awesome and peace out!


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